<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Folks,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">While I agree with Evan that most Internet users don’t know and don’t care about some less used TLDs - in the same way as most drivers and car buyers don’t know and don’t care about some less used car brands - I am missing something about the “problem" that started this thread, i.e.:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;" class=""><div class=""><b class=""><i class="">Developers of major pieces of internet software, including the world’s most-popular messaging app, may be relying on seriously outdated lists of top-level domains.</i></b></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There is one single authoritative source of information, maintained by IANA, that is the root zone file. Why on earth should ICANN maintain a second one? This fancy tendency by developers (I can say that, as I have been in that business for decades) to rely on alternate sources of information and/or make incorrect assumptions (like assuming that TLDs are max 3 chars long, except for ARPA) is the root cause of most of the problems.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">By the way, when we say “One world, one Internet” we implicitly condemn having alternate or secondary sources of information about the Internet components.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Cheers,</div><div class="">Roberto</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 13.09.2023, at 15:50, Evan Leibovitch via At-Large <<a href="mailto:at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org" class="">at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">Can't say that I'm surprised. Welcome to the totally predictable consequences of ICANN's:</div><ul class=""><li class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">Insisting that it's not a regulator</li><li class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">Making "global" decisions without weight of international treaty</li><li class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">Expanding the gTLD space *well* beyond that which benefits Internet users.</li></ul><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">At-Large's most useful activity is to document and publicize the list of gTLDs unrecognized by the Android library, and to encourage ICANN to engage with Android developers to update the library.<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">It should be telling that nobody has noticed this problem that has existed since 2015, and that the news appeared in an industry news site rather than in the IT mainstream. That tells me that most Internet end-users don't know and don't care about these other domains.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">There's a lesson here to be learned.<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><br clear="all" class=""></div><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div style="text-align:center" class=""><div style="text-align:left" class="">Evan Leibovitch, <span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Toronto Canada</span></div><div style="text-align:left" class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">@evanleibovitch / </span><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">@el56</span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br class=""></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 10:43 AM Dev Anand Teelucksingh via At-Large <<a href="mailto:at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org" class="">at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr" class="">"<b class="">Developers of major pieces of internet software, including
the world’s most-popular messaging app, may be relying on seriously
outdated lists of top-level domains.</b><p class="">That’s the picture that seems to be emerging from one new gTLD
operator’s quest to discover why WhatsApp doesn’t recognize its TLD, and
many others including major dot-brands, as valid."</p>....When most social media apps detect the user has inputted a URL or domain name, they automatically “linkify” it so it can be easily clicked or tapped without the need for copy/paste.<br class=""><br class="">But when Rami Schwartz of new gTLD .tube discovered that .tube URLs sent via WhatsApp, said to have two billion users, were not being linkified, despite the TLD being delegated by ICANN almost eight years ago, he set out to find out why.<br class=""><br class="">Schwartz compiled a spreadsheet (.xlsx) listing which gTLDs are recognized by WhatsApp and which are not and discovered a rough cut-off point in November 2015. TLDs delegated before then are linkified, those delegated after were not......This means that, for example, .microsoft domains linkify but .amazon and .apple domains do not; .asia domains linkify but .africa and .arab domains do not; .london works but .abudhabi doesn’t. Even .verisign missed the cut-off.<br class=""><br class="">If WhatsApp users include a “www.” or “http://” then the app will linkify the domain, even if the specified TLD does not exist.<br class=""><br class="">.....During the course of <a href="https://github.com/publicsuffix/list/issues/1807" rel="noopener" target="_blank" class="">a discussion</a>
on the web site of the Public Suffix List — which maintains an
open-source list of all TLDs and the levels at which names may be
registered — it was discovered that the problem may be deeper rooted
than the WhatsApp app.
<p class="">It turns out <a href="https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/main/+/main:frameworks/base/core/java/android/util/Patterns.java;l=114" rel="noopener" target="_blank" class="">a library in the Android operating system</a> contains a hard-coded list of valid TLDs which hasn’t been updated since November 24, 2015" </p>
Read full article : <br class=""><div class=""><a href="https://domainincite.com/29054-is-this-why-whatsapp-hates-some-tlds-but-not-others" target="_blank" class="">https://domainincite.com/29054-is-this-why-whatsapp-hates-some-tlds-but-not-others</a></div><div class=""><br class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Regards,<br class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Dev Anand Teelucksingh<br class=""></div></div>
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