Unfortunate story. It wasn't clear to me that the .online TLD led to Google blacklisting the site. Why did you think that was connected?
Unfortunate story. It wasn't clear to me that the .online TLD led to Google blacklisting the site. Why did you think that was connected?
The problem isn't Google Safe Search backlisting the side (I mean that also is a problem, but a very different one).
The problem is the vanity domain registrar Radix using that as a reason to _put the whole domain on hold, including all subdomains, email entries etc._
This means:
- no way to fix accidental wrong "safe search" blacklisting
- if it was your main domain no mails with all the things it entails
- no way to redirect API servers, apps etc. to a different domain. In general it's not just the website which it's down it's all app, APIs, or anything you had on that domain
Google Safe search is meant to help keep chrome users safe from phishing etc. it is fundamentally not designed to be a Authority Institute which can unilaterally dictate which domains are no longer usable at all.
Like basically what Radix did was a full domain take down of the kind you normally need a judge order for... cause by a safe browsing helper service misfiring. That is is RALLY bad, and they refuse to fix their mistake, too.
You normally don't have _that_ level of fundamentally broken internal processes absurdity with the more reputable TLD operators (which doesn't mean you don't have that in edge cases, but this isn't an edge case this is there standard policy).
At the same time given the already terrible reputation of such vanity TLDs, being this hard on abuse might be the only survivable way.
That's not me saying there shouldn't be a warning and a recourse, but the time-to-profit for domain abuse is really short so anti-abuse actions have to be quick.
This isn't being hard on abuse though, this is being lazy and incompetent.
I'm fairly sure that Safe Browsing's false-positive rate is extremely low otherwise it'd be unusable in Chrome. Which also means that acting on positive results is very likely a correct approach.
Safe browsing is meant for websites, not domain names. You really want your registry acting on it and nuking your email services, intranet services, cert renewal automation, et cetera?
You think no bad actor thinks of that, using subdomains or whatnot?
Nor did I say anything about wanting a registry acting on it, it's just that the motivations and reasons are incredibly clear. At least to me.
And let me also reiterate that I clearly said that it should be a thought-out process and they haven't thought it out.
My understanding from the article is that because the registrar for this domain is using Google safe browsing for their domain suspension, something that a) shouldn't be the case and b) isn't the case for other, perhaps more mainstream TLDs
Right. Sounds more like a registrar problem than a TLD problem. They should change the article title to "Never buy a domain from Radix"
Radix is the registry for .online, not the registrar they bought the domain from.
The registrar suspense domain because it on Google blocked list. And Google refuse to review the ban because he can't prove he own that domain (because it suspended :D).