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Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

Ok, and .kz is the ccTLD for Kazakhstan. You think people can't realize the difference?

Germany is a bit over the top in this regard. When abbreviating a name to two letters (like as an avatar or as a short form for a newspaper author name) we usually specifically avoid KZ, HJ, NS, SA, SS. You also can't get those in a license plate.

There must be some demographic which cares. I've personally only seen people amused by it.

Could you please explain HJ, NS and SA?

HJ = Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth)

SA = Sturmabteilung (NSDAP paramilitary org)

NS = idk, probably NatSoc / National Socialist

If you asked 100 people in Germany(!) what "KZ" stands for the result would be something like 95 say "Konzentrationslager", 5 say "I don't know" and 0 "ISO code for Kazakhstan".

Indeed. But if you ask the whole world (as we're on the internet), 1% might recognize it as "Konzentrationslager", 2% might recognize it as Kazakhstan and the rest have no idea.

So for general internet usage, I think it's fine. We're not modelling the internet after German customs after all.

No we're modelling the internet after US customs, which is why boobs are banned from mainstream Internet services and have to hide in the porn.

I'm not sure we're better off.

Maybe if you frequent websites based in the US, yeah. Otherwise no, there is plenty of boobs all across the web and some sites don't hide porn as not everyone is as prude as the americans.

But there are other webs out there, speaking many different languages and carrying many different customs. The beauty is that if you don't like US customs, you can usually find communities that are far away from US culture.

I just tried to explain why the .kz email-address would be problematic for germans. I didn't propose that this should be the general rule for all the internet. Personally I don't have a problem if someone from another country emails me from a .kz domain. But I wouldn't get one myself and if the person emailing me is german I would probably look twice to see what the reason behind that domain choice is.

There's a difference between "realising the difference" and "actively wanting it as my internet identity".

Yep. If you're a German living or working in Kazakhstan it's certainly fine to have a .kz email.

Using it as in a vanity domain like we do with .me or .io, on the other hand, will definitely look weird.

I'm sure people can realize the difference, but I'd expect the thought process in Germany to go something like

1) hmm, they have .kz as the TLD

2) apparently thats kazakhstan? TIL

3) kinda weird that they, not being from kazakhstan, would choose to have that as their TLD. Maybe they're using it with another meaning in mind.

3.5) Let's give them the benefit of the doubt but remain wary of potential secret nazis, as one has to, here.

It's not whether they realize what it means as per the intent of the service provider, it's about what people think it means for other people. Since we're talking about an email service. I.e. I guess it's one thing to email someone in Germany from an <emoji>.kz email address and a completely different one to have customers (well, at least non-neonazi ones) signing up for such and address. Even if they do realize what kz stands for.

Ah, sorry, when I said "they" I meant a user of a .kz email address, not the service provider.

You think the average person would know what a ccTLD is or that kz refers to Kazakhstan?

I think the average internet user is familiar with country-specific TLDs.

I think the average Internet user is not familiar with country-specific TLDs except for their own country and a few others. Most people do not realise that .me, .tv, .cc, are country TLDs, they think they are country-independent TLDs similarly to .com, .net, .org, and in practice they may well be used more by organisations and people that have no relation to those countries than by those that do. In this case even users who are aware that they are strictly speaking country TLDs have reason to assume the same applies: .kz was not picked because of any relation between Mailoji and Kazakhstan. It was picked for technical reasons, but users would not know of those technical reasons, they would have no reason to think it was picked for anything other than .kz being seen as a good name.

And .tv is Tuvalu, and .me is Montenegro, and .io is the British Indian Ocean Territory. But those domain names are popular largely because they have other meanings.

I'm just giving the explanation of the historical context to GP, I'm neither German nor a lawmaker in Germany.

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