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Crypto domains: a feminist issue?

Kevin Murphy, June 6, 2022, 10:51:29 (UTC), Domain Tech

Unstoppable Domains has found a novel way to market its alt-root domains service — give away hundreds of thousands of free domains to female entrepreneurs and women in general.

In two separate announcements over the last few days, partners committed to give away well over a million domains, part of Unstoppable’s push to persuade women that alt-roots and “Web3” are good ideas.

First, Access Abu Dhabi, a project of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, said it will give a domain for free to “all women residing in the UAE capital”, which is believed to be about one million people.

Abu Dhabi is an overwhelmingly immigrant and overwhelmingly male city. Men are believed to outnumber women 2:1 in the UAE, a nation where until this year women could be jailed or flogged for the crime of extramarital sex.

It’s also one of a handful of cities in the world to have its own gTLDs in the authoritative root — .abudhabi and the Arabic-script equivalent — but while fees are not too high (about $40) registration restrictions are pretty strict, requiring among other things a passport scan.

The announcement by Access Abu Dhabi was made in conjunction with Unstoppable Women of Web3, an Unstoppable spin-off project set up a few months ago to pitch alt-root crypto domains to women.

Unstoppable Women is also behind a separate announcement from The Female Quotient, an equality services company, which is promising to give away up to 600,000 domains to women at its “Equality Lounge” events at various tech conferences over the coming months.

Unstoppable’s alt-root TLDs include .x, .crypto, .bitcoin, .coin and .wallet. Prices usually range from $20 to $100, but there are no renewal fees.

Female entrepreneurs obtaining these domains will quickly realize that they don’t work for the vast majority of internet users and are probably not a sound foundation for building a business.

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Comments (2)

  1. Surprised says:

    A country known for censorship is promoting uncensorable domains?

    • Kevin Murphy says:

      I guess that’s also weird. Seemed to me that a country that still has extremely misogynist laws in place was the more pressing point. The whole thing is stupid.

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