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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Heidivly (talk | contribs) at 14:25, 17 March 2020 (This change was made to correct the outdated link to dine.to which has been purchased by Yellowpages for a number of years and no longer exists. I have replaced it with another .to site that is more relevant for present day.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

.to
Introduced1995
TLD typeCountry code top-level domain
StatusActive
RegistryTonga Network Information Center (Tonic)
SponsorGovernment of Tonga
Intended useEntities connected with Tonga
Actual useUsed for a varied assortment of sites, few related to Tonga. Often used for torrent websites, technology startups in Toronto and domain hacks.
Registration restrictionsOpen to everyone but some vulgar words not allowed to register and use for spam prohibited.
StructureRegistrations permitted at second level; some Tonga-related entities have domains at third level under labels like .gov.to
DocumentsFAQ
Dispute policiesSome trademarked names reserved; no other dispute policy
Registry websiteTonic

.to is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of the island kingdom of Tonga.

The government of Tonga sells domains in its ccTLD to any interested party. The .to ccTLD is administered by the Tonga Network Information Center (Tonic).[1]

Because to is a common English preposition, it became popular to craft memorable URLs called domain hacks that take advantage of this; URL shortening/redirection services (e.g. go.to) are a popular use. Other domain hacks do not use the to as a preposition but rather as a syllable inside of a word, including Daniel J. Bernstein's website cr.yp.to, London web development company Potato p.ota.to, and uploading services such as uloz.to (which means "save it" in Czech and Slovak).

"T.O." (tee-oh) is also a common nickname for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and is used as a city domain as exemplified by popular Toronto sites Budtender.to (Cannabis Dispensary Reviews) and Jobs.to (Job Bank Toronto). This domain is also used for the city of Torino (Turin), Italy, and also as a domain hack in Slavic languages (to meaning it).

As the .to domains are purchased, all normal DNS operations are possible and registered sites are not required to display ads on behalf of the registrar. Some domains are free, like .edu.to, but only to real Tongan educational institutions. At this moment businesses registered in Tonga can also get free domains. People who sell on .to domains can claim a commission.

.to is one of the few ccTLDs that (officially) do not maintain a (public) WHOIS database providing registrant information. It is possible to contact domain registrants via tonic.to by typing the domain in the domain search field under "New Domain Name".[2]

The top-level domain to itself had an A record and a HTTP server since at least 1998.[3]

The .to registry allows the creation of emoji domain names and the .to registrar, Register.TO, supports the search and registration of .to emoji domain names.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ Tonga Network Information Center
  2. ^ "Tonic Corporation Frequently Asked Questions: Does Tonic offer a whois service?". Tonic.
  3. ^ to. at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
  4. ^ Hughes, Matthew (15 August 2017). "This site helps you find the perfect Emoji domain name (with one caveat)". The Next Web. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  5. ^ "Register.TO".


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