Well, the .io domain name is intended for the British Indian Ocean territory.<p>I think the common practice of misusing TLDs (such as registering an .io domain if you are not from the British Indian Ocean territory, or having a Soviet Union domain... a country that no longer exist), is bad.<p>However, I acknowledge this is not the root problem. The root problem is the scarcity of domains under traditional TLDs, and that's in great part due to speculation (e.g: domain parking). It is hard to establish what constitutes
placeholder content, therefore rules preventing domain parking are hard if not unfeasible to forbid.