They own the entire TLD.
To reach your DNS you have to go through the TLD. On free domains, the TTL is set to 300 seconds (or 60 seconds).
So to reach your ns1.example.com, it goes through {a,b,c,d}.ns.tk first and refers to ns1.example.com.
To reach your DNS you have to go through the TLD. On free domains, the TTL is set to 300 seconds (or 60 seconds).
So to reach your ns1.example.com, it goes through {a,b,c,d}.ns.tk first and refers to ns1.example.com.
Ah, that's the piece I was missing. I get how DNS works but I hadn't fathomed that FreeNom was the root for those TLDs they handle.
Still curious how / if / when they tell you about the thresholds.
Fortunately none of the domains I have registered there are used for anything important but it does hurt if someone does use one they register for something important.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tk
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ga
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cf
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gq
[4]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130407005038/en/Mal...
Of course, such arrangements are not very reliable. The relationship between a sovereign entity and an individual, or even a small corporation, is unbalanced. The rules of the game are set by one party, and varied at their whim. "But that's not fair" might work in countries that pride themselves on fairness, such as the United States of America (though don't count on it) but it won't get you very far in Equatorial Guinea.
If these arrangements annoy the other sovereign entities, they might do something about it. For example, the Paris MOU (and subsequently similar Port State Control rules in much of the developed world) - is what happened when European states were annoyed that places like Panama were not pulling their weight when it came to safety and employment standards on commercial shipping, and operated Open Registers (which the Europeans argued were in fact mere "Flags of Convenience") to earn money without spending that money where it was needed.
But if they just annoy you, a mere individual with no rights on the world stage at all, you can go whistle. You are not even eligible to complain to most of the bodies that claim jurisdiction over sovereign entities, another sovereign entity would need to take up the complaint.
a.ns.cf has address 185.21.168.17
a.ns.gq has address 185.21.168.65
a.ns.ml has address 185.21.168.1
a.ns.ga has address 185.21.168.49
% Abuse contact for '185.21.168.0 - 185.21.168.15' is 'abuse@freenom.com'
% Abuse contact for '185.21.168.16 - 185.21.168.31' is 'abuse@freenom.com'
..and so on