The arrival of the new top level domains (TLDs) .zip and .mov introduced by Google are not warmly welcomed by critics. According to them, they easily give rise to abuse, writes Ars Technica.
Recently, Google added eight new TLDs. Among these domains are .zip and .mov. These two domains are under fire from critics, as in their view they give rise to possible easy abuse and deception.
These extensions can cause great confusion among end users. The .zip extension is used as an archiving extension and .mov is the extension of a video format from Apple.
Reference to malware
Critics fear that when these domain extensions appear in e-mails or social media posts, for example, they will automatically turn into clickable links. Malicious parties could then easily capitalize on this technical error and redirect to malicious websites and/or install malware. This entirely on purpose, of course.
Google’s reaction
In a response, Ars Technica writes, Google says that the use of the TLDs in question is OK after all. However, the tech giant will monitor whether the new TLDs are abused for malicious purposes.
As justification, Google states that abuse is countered by Google Safe Browsing. Moreover, ‘well-known’ extensions would have been used for TLDs in the past, such as .command. Again, confusion would have arisen, but ultimately did not lead to problems.
Continuing suspicion
Meanwhile, 2,753 domain names with .zip have now been registered. Only two of these domain names are known to be potentially malicious. However, critics remain skeptical about the use of .zip and .mov as TLDs and are considering trying to remove these extensions from the public suffix list (PSL).
Also read: 48,000 websites with .eu domain names were taken off the web
13 hours ago
