I'm not sure what your problem is or what prompted this childish remark. I'm sorry if I presented what I believe to have been a reasoned comment with evidence and documentation etc. and somehow elicted this from you. I can't figure out why, however.
[...] Really, Barry, it never ceases to amaze me how people turn their particular experience or view of something on the Internet into what reality is or what should happen. After all Barry, YOU have seen .to domains used for criminal activities, and none of them to the contrary! Oh-my-God! That must mean that the whole TLD is nothing but a joke, or a haven for these people. I'd laugh but it's not really funny. See, originally I was going to write an email on how Tonga had contacted IANA to run this idea of a registry by them. After all, it is their domain and they saw a business opportunity. Given that we have certain other TLDs selling domains (say, oh, .COM and .NET), I think the IANA figured it was their TLD to do with as they pleased. (within reason, of course) Now, a good possible issue you could have brought up is .to addresses being used outside of Tonga, although I think this is a pretty moot point. But, reality is that it's silly to use DNS (or really anything else) to try and pinpoint geography on the Internet. Unless you are suggesting a plan to monitor inverse DNS mapping, I don't think there's much you can do here. Instead, you choose to bring up spamming activities and criminal activities. Well, gee, when was the last time you contacted the InterNIC over a spam issue, Barry? Like TONIC, it's a *public* registry. Like TONIC, it has *nothing* to do with spamming issues. It would be completely out of line for the NANOG and other communities to try and address the real problem of spamming by looking at TLDs. That is completely missing the problem, and a waste of time. Not only that, but it gets regulators interested in the wrong area. Do you really want regulators deciding what you can and cannot do with domain names or TLDs? Think about it. (and that's a different issue than whether it's legal to spam with a domain) My apologies to cc'ing NANOG again. I tried to make light of the idiocies but failed. Karl P.S. My affiliation with Best has nothing to do with this. TONIC could move easily to another ISP. P.P.S. Your "points" about them running a humerous version of sendmail scare me because they're so bogus.