Google’s new domains under fire

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.

Google recently added eight new TLDs. Among these domains are .zip and .mov. These two domains are given the full brunt of critics, as in their eyes they give rise to possible simple abuse and deception.

Mainly because these extensions can cause great confusion among end users. .zip is an extension used as an archiving extension and .mov is the extension of a video format from Apple.

Reference to malware

The critics are afraid that if these domain extensions appear in e-mails or social media posts, they will automatically turn into clickable links. Malicious people can then easily respond to this technical error and refer to malicious websites and/or install malware. All this on purpose, of course.

Response Google

In a response, Google indicates, writes Ars Technica, that the use of the TLDs in question is still in order. However, the tech giant will monitor whether the new TLDs are being misused for malicious purposes.

As substantiation, Google indicates that abuse is prevented by Google Safe Browsing. In addition, ‘well-known’ extensions have been used for TLDs in the past, such as .command. Here, too, confusion would have arisen, but in the end it would not have led to any problems.

Permanent suspicion

There are now 2,753 domain names with .zip registered. Only two of these domain names are known to be potentially malicious. However, critics remain skeptical about using .zip and .mov as TLDs and are considering trying to remove these extensions from the public suffix list (PSL).

Read also: Phishing and malware sites with a .nl domain often go offline within 24 hours