.tk

.tk

.tk
Introduced	1997
TLD type	Country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	Dot TK (run by Taloha, Inc.)
Sponsor	Government of Tokelau; Teletok; Vixie NZ Ltd (caretaker)
Intended use	Entities connected with Tokelau
Actual use	A wide variety of uses, generally not related to Tokelau; free domains available (with DNS hosted by registry) or paid registrations which can be hosted elsewhere
Registration restrictions	None
Structure	Registrations are taken directly at the second level; free domains are redirected to actual website addresses within frame
Documents	Policies
Dispute policies	Dispute Resolution Policy
Registry website	Dot.TK

.tk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand located in the South Pacific.

Tokelau provides any interested individuals free .tk domain names, but forces the placement of advertising banners on all provided domains. These free domains are pointed to Tokelau nameservers, which redirect HTTP traffic via HTML frames to a specified web page. The domains also redirect five email addresses to external addresses. Because of this redirection, use of free .tk domains for other services (such as hosting servers for other protocols such as FTP and IRC, or creating hostnames and subdomains within them is not officially possible.

Sites not visited at least 25 times in consecutive 90 day periods are automatically cancelled to avoid the domains being unavailable to more active websites.

To be able to use one's own nameservers, or get a "special" .tk domain name, for example, trademark domain names for most Fortune 500 companies, and to avoid advertisements, the user must buy it. Paid domain names start at $6.95 US per year.

Potentially valuable names with less than 4 characters are unavailable for free registration, and must be purchased - usually at a premium price of over $1000 USD.

Internet service provider Road Runner on Time Warner Cable, once blocked all sites with the .tk domain except for dot.tk and tcl.tk. The .tk domain has since been unblocked. It is unknown why the domain was originally blocked.

Controversy

Despite Dot TK stating on their website that the "optional advertisement on your website [...] can be easily removed FOR FREE" many users of Dot TK are unable to remove the advertisements. Removing them is not free of charge but through a " premium rate (paid) SMS" service - paying to remove the ad. A forced intro page appears if an ad blocker is detected. In addition to these advertisements, Dot TK frequently displays their registration page instead of the registered website, making the user's site inaccessible. As the server tries to guess your location from your IP address, you may live in a country completely different from the IP reverse-resolve - unfortunately this means the page will be displayed in a different language.

Previously, every access to a free site first would show an advertisement before the redirect to the registered site took place - unless the site manager disabled it in the Linker-Promo section of 'My Dot Tk', you couldn't have more than three free domain names.

There are reports that .tk domains have been used for phishing scams and spam.

External links

• IANA .tk whois information
• .tk registration