*.advice.online - incorrectly flagged as suspicious

[DWS2020]

Hi,

Can you please whitelist the domain advice.online and all it's subdomains? This domain is used to host our (Digital Wealth Solutions) multi-tenanted, wealth management application.

It has been reported to us by a client of ours that your software has flagged one of our subdomains as having a 'suspicious top level domain'. 

I'm happy to provide further info, if necessary.

Regards

[gonzo]

The site has been whitelisted. Please allow 15-30 minutes for changes to take effect.

 

[DWS2020]

Hi @gonzo.

Thank you for your previous help. We have now created a new, related domain called advice.asia. 

Would it be possible to also whitelist advice.asia and all of its subdomains?

As with advice.online, the new advice.asia domain is used to host our (Digital Wealth Solutions, https://www.digitalwealthsolutions.co.uk/) multi-tenanted, wealth management application - specifically for clients in the Asia region.

Thank you.

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, DWS2020 said:

Would it be possible to also whitelist advice.asia and all of its subdomains?

I do not see any blocks.

[DWS2020]

55 minutes ago, Porthos said:

I do not see any blocks.

Thank you for responding. Our older domain, advice.online, wasn't blocked... until it was. If possible, we'd like to be proactively add advice.asia to a whitelist - to ensure that our end users aren't affected by a potential future block. Is this possible, do you know? Thank you again.

[Porthos]

4 minutes ago, DWS2020 said:

If possible, we'd like to be proactively add advice.asia to a whitelist - to ensure that our end users aren't affected by a potential future block. Is this possible, do you know? Thank you again.

That is up to staff but in general, websites are not pre whitelisted.

@gonzo

[gonzo]

Adding a site to a whitelist proactively is the equivalent of giving a free pass to everyone who says "Trust me."  Your previous site was blocked due to usage of a non-standard top level domain.  The ".asia" TLD is not blocked, and advice.asia redirects to Digital Wealth Solutions. It is working as is intended.  We do not block "just because" nor do we whitelist for that same lack of reason.

[DWS2020]

Thanks for the explanation, @gonzo; I appreciate it.

But how is .online a non-standard domain? Surely its introduction was part of ICANN's attempt to provide more internet real estate for companies, organisations etc. in a then increasingly crowded internet. To your 'just because' point, it seems like a .online domain was blocked just because it was a .online domain; rather than a more substantive, specific reason.

[Porthos]

1 minute ago, DWS2020 said:

To your 'just because' point, it seems like a .online domain was blocked just because it was a .online domain; rather than a more substantive, specific reason.

Browser guard has made detecting domains like that for a "just because" was changed and made detecting those non default and only enabled manually

Loads of FP's and complaints. .online .info.tech and so on were blocked.

[gonzo]

@DWS2020,

I understand your questioning of my statement.  Non-standard...yes, in terms of how things WERE.  Crowded is an aspect of how things WERE and how things ARE.  Opening the doors to a plethora of new TLDs, while positioned as a way to relieve crowding was in actuality a way to be able to collect a lot more money for registration of a huge number or new domain names, some of which could be gold mines due to the linking of the domain and the TLD.  It was a marketer's dream.

That is nice to know, but not the basis of our blocks.  The basis comes down to a few basic points:

• Non-standard domains provide an infinite number of places for malware to originate from, and statistics have shown malware is more likely to originate from a non-standard TLD than one of the few major TLDs,
• Many people will click on virtually anything, and some of those people have a perception that a domain name somehow guarantees a legitimate site.
• Those same people will be the first ones to say "Why didn't you protect me" when they did little to do that for themselves.

As @Porthos has shown, mass unblocking of TLDs can be done with a single Browser Guard setting.  If you are a web surfer, that is great.  If you are a website operator who is affected by that setting, not so great.  The setting which he has pointed out originated as a result of complaints by people who either were taking responsbility for their own safety or simply decided that "it can't happen to them."

We are trying to make the Internet a bit safer for people across the board.