Registrations are taken directly at the second level; domains are redirected to actual website addresses within a frame, or point directly to a webserver or nameserver.
The .tk TLD is managed by Teletok, a local telecommunications company who outsourced thedomain registry operation to a Dutch company Freenom, who was additionally also acting as a registrar. As Freenom offered free registration, the .tk ending was often associated with malicious activities like phishing, spam andcybersquatting. In 2023, Freenom stopped offering new .tk registrations in their registrar business as a result of a lawsuit withMeta. Their registry operations for other registrars were not affected by this. Freenom announced it would exit the domain registry and registrar business in February 2024.
Teletok opened negotiations with the domain registry operator of .nz, for help in managing .tk after Freenom's exit.[1]
Tokelau allows any individual to register domain names. Users and small businesses were able to register any number of domain names free of charge (with some restrictions).[2] In addition to the name itself, users can opt to forward their web traffic usingHTML frames and their email traffic, with a maximum of 250 addresses per user log in, or use fullDNS, either via their own or third-party servers, or by using Dot TK's servers. There are content restrictions for free domains, banning sites containingsexual content,drug use,hate speech,firearms, and spam orcopyright infringement.[2] Dot TK requires free domains to have a regular traffic of visitors, and if a domain's redirect target does not work (even temporarily) the domain is taken offline. If a domain violates any of these terms, it is replaced by aSedo advertisement page, and no advance warning is given.
Dot TK also provides .tkwebsites with the option to join a network called TiKinet, a close-knit network that links sites to each other based on keywords called TiKilinks. The network is expected to increase traffic to the websites, many of which are personal sites andblogs operated by individuals who otherwise would have no way to advertise their sites.[3]
To be able to get a "special" .tk domain name the user must buy it. This includes trademark domain names for mostFortune 500 companies and common dictionary terms. Paid domain names cost US$19.90 for the first two years. Potentially valuable names with fewer than 4 characters are similarly unavailable for free registration and must generally be purchased at a premium price of over $1000.
Dot TK launched a new service called TweaK forTwitter users in April 2010, offering a URL shortening service that uses less space than many others, and forFacebook where the user can rename Facebook account pages with a .tk name.
In 2016, Nominet released a world map where each country was resized according to the popularity of its top-level domain. The .tk domain ranked first worldwide with 31,311,498 registered domain names (China (.cn) ranked 2nd with 16,810,737 registered domain names). The revenues from the .tk top-level domain business represent about1⁄6 of the island's annual income.[4]
In 2006,McAfee conducted a survey in which they claim out of the 95 percent mosttrafficked web sites, .tk domains were twice as likely as the global average to be used for "unwanted behaviours", includingscams such asphishing andspam.[5] However, in 2008McAfee reported that the threat of scams likephishing andspam was significantly reduced with .tk and that other top level domains such as.com and.net were much more used in such scams.[6]
A 2011 report by theAnti Phishing Working Group blamed Tokelau's bad reputation on the registry Dot TK. It acquired the right to operate the top level domain and is responsible for the current free registration system. .tk domains logged 2533 of 11768 (~21.5%) total phishing attacks in the second half of 2010 Internet-wide.[7]
A 2018 report by Michelle Base-Bursey stated that, "The third most prevalent TLD for phishing attacks is .tk, the country code for Tokelau, a territory north of New Zealand in the South Pacific."[8]
On 3 March 2023,Meta filed a lawsuit against Freenom allegingcybersquatting violations and trademark infringement, and new domain registrations were halted.[10] The lawsuit references a 2021 study on the abuse of domains conducted by Interisle Consulting Group, which discovered that the ccTLDs operated by Freenom made up five of the top ten TLDs most abused byphishers. In November 2023,ICANN terminated its registrar accreditation agreement with Freenom due to failure to cure breaches of the agreement within 21 days of notice.[11] On 12 February 2024, Freenom announced that it had settled the lawsuit with Meta under undisclosed terms, and that it would exit the domain name and registry business.[12]
By early March 2024, around 99% of Freenom domains (mostly those under .tk,.cf, and.gq), roughly 12.6 million, were no longer accessible, although it was reported that some paid domains were still active. Most of these domains hosted their DNS withCloudflare, which consequently saw a 22% drop in its number of hosted domains.[13]
