From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

.tk

Introduced	1997
TLD type	Country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	Dot TK (run by BV Dot TK)
Sponsor	Government of Tokelau and Teletok
Intended use	Entities connected with Tokelau
Actual use	A narrow 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, or point directly to a webserver or nameserver
Documents	Policies
Dispute policies	Dispute Resolution Policy
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.

Overview

Tokelau provides any interested individuals .tk domain names free of charge. These free domains are pointed to Tokelau nameservers, which previously redirected HTTP traffic via HTML frames to a specified web page, but now have the option to directly point to a server's IP address or use an alternative nameserver. The domains also redirect 250 email addresses to external addresses. 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.

Dot TK recently provided .tk websites the option to join a network called TiKinet, a close-knit network that links sites to each other based on key words called TiKilinks. The network is expected to increase traffic to the websites, many of which are personal sites and blogs operated by individuals who otherwise would have no way to advertise their sites.^[1]

To be able to get a "special" .tk domain name, for example, trademark domain names for most Fortune 500 companies, the user must buy it. Paid domain names start at US$19.90 for the first two years. Potentially valuable names with less than 4 characters are similarly unavailable for free registration, and must be purchased—usually at a premium price of over $1000.

Dot TK have now teamed up with Twitter so when you create your name you can "tweet" it to Twitter, and Facebook where you can rename yours and your friends' Facebook account pages with a .tk name.

All .tk domains were down in May 2009 (including the Dot TK website), instead displaying this message: "At this moment Dot TK is a bit overwhelmed by all the new users. Therefore we are currently unable to handle your request." On 6 May 2009, all service was restored.

Previously, access to .tk-hosted redirects would show an advertisement before redirecting. Also, unless the site administrator disabled it in the Linker-Promo section of "My Dot Tk", it was not possible to have more than three free domain names.

Research of McAfee

In 2006, McAfee conducted a survey in which they claim out of the 95 percent most trafficked web sites, .tk domains were twice as likely as the global average to be used for "unwanted behaviours", including scams such as phishing and spam.^[2] However, in 2008 McAfee reported that the threat of scams like phishing and spam was significantly reduced with .tk and that other top level domains such as .com and .net were much more used in such scams.^[3]

References

External links

• IANA .tk whois information
• .tk Registration

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Translingual

Etymology

Wikipedia has an article on:

.tk

Wikipedia

. + ISO 3166-1 country code for Tokelau, tk.

Abbreviation

.tk

1. The ccTLD for Tokelau as assigned by the IANA.