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Ben Metcalfe
benmetcalfe.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Ben Metcalfe writes about startups, domain names, visas for Y Combinator, acqhires and account security.
What HN saysHN commenters link his post warning that the .ly domain space is unsafe, as well as his GMail password post.
16HN people shared it
11linked it in comments
12stories submitted
437story points
6 years agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe9 people · 287 points · first shared 2010 · 194 comments on HN
- 2What visa type do you need, exactly, to legally participate in Y Combinator?3 people · 5 points · first shared 2012 · 2 comments on HN
- 3My GMail password scares me with its power2 people · 86 points · first shared 2009 · 45 comments on HN
- 4Musings about so-called ‘acqhire’ talent acquisitions2 people · 7 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 5Today Apple announced the death of the optical drive in its laptops1 people · 42 points · first shared 2010 · 80 comments on HN
- 6Vb.ly is dead, long live vbly.us1 people · 3 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 7"The media and your users won’t understand or care you went for an MVP" (Path)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 8The European startup scene1 people · 2 points · first shared 2007 · discussion on HN
- 9Helping UK startups get ahead in San Francisco and Silicon Valley1 people · 1 points · first shared 2007 · discussion on HN
- 10PaperKarma, Craigslist and unintentional disruption1 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · 1 comments on HN
- 11Glad to see price increases for SxSW Interactive 20111 people · 1 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 12Wordpress to be currently considered unsafe1 people · first shared 2010
- 13Elevator hacks1 people · first shared 2010
- 14Our response to nic lys statement on the vb ly domain deletion1 people · first shared 2010
What HN people wrote when they linked it
elliottcarlson · 2017-07-04
Back in the very early 2000's I owned a domain and a month after renewing it, the registrar refunded me the registration fee and took ownership of it - the new WHOIS entry was for the owner of that registrar.
Similarly; you are at the whim of the NICs, with the .ly domains being a great example of a TLD taking back domains for whatever reason. https://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-conside…
dotBen · 2010-03-31
This is great news. I blogged about this back in October - glad to see Google have taken this issue on.
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2009/10/my-gmail-password-scares-me-with-i…
It will be interesting to see how successful adoption of IMAP-via-OAuth will be.
pelagicAustral · 2021-02-23
A lot has happened with that domain name. [0][1][2]
[0] https://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-conside…
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2004/04/13/libya_falls_off_net/
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2011/04/04/letter-ly-abrupt-ly-loses-domain-nam…
gozo · 2015-10-17
At least from what I've heard YCs position on this has been "not our problem". Frankly that has seemingly been their position on many concerns of founders e.g. housing. YC only leaves you 6 weeks or so from acceptance to start of the program which obviously isn't enough to get a work permit.
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2012/02/what-visa-type-do-you-need-exactly…
ozh · 2014-04-08
Sad story. I'd avoid a number of African TLDs, to be honest. Remember the .ly fiasco a couple years back[1]
[1] http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-consider…
ank_net · 2012-10-06
you can get some info here:
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2012/02/what-visa-type-do-you-need-exactly…
huggyface · 2012-03-06
To second the comment that itmag made, you are simply replacing one country with another. Recall the debacles that happened among the cute .ly TLDs when Libya decided that Islamic law applied to sites like vb.ly.
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-consider…
andrewpi · 2011-04-05
FYI: Ben Metcalfe warned about problems with .ly domains back in October 2010. (see http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-consider…
thisisblurry · 2011-02-03
If it were me, I'd purchase both the vanity tld of your choice along with .com/.net and use .htaccess rules to redirect content to one or the other.
I'd be wary of .ly domains though.. http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-consider…
frb · 2010-11-24
One should definitely be careful when registering domains that belong to countries which not really democracies.
Remember that they can switch off your domain at any moment. And by no means build your business on it.
vb.ly is a good example: http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-consider…
donohoe · 2010-10-06
Looks like there is a crackdown on .ly domains. See also:
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be-consider…