Not long ago I wrote about Gabon taking back the .ga registry from Freenom. Now, on July 17, 2023, the Republic of Mali has taken back the .ml registry because the delegation agreement expired.
Back in 2013, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier obtained the .ml registry rights, signing a 10-year agreement with the government of Mali. So from 2013 to 2023, the .ml domains we registered for free were never actually managed by the Republic of Mali itself. Now that Mali has reclaimed the management, all the .ml domains registered in that window have stopped resolving.
There was also a big controversy earlier: the US military’s domain is .mil, which looks very similar to .ml, causing plenty of email to be mis-sent to .ml addresses — including leaks of military secrets.
If you hold one of these free domains, keep an eye on its status and adjust your technical settings in time.