[barrettondricka]

> The example.{com,org,net} domain was created for this purpose, of a valid but not real domain.

No it wasn't. IANA is hosting example.com and paying for the traffic.

example.com is a writing convention to provide safe examples in documentation. The reason example.com exists, is to make sure documentation writers can use a domain, make it obvious it is an example, and make sure nothing bad comes up with a user happens to click it.

The fact that example.com is a domain with a DNS record is irrelevant to its intended use. IANA is doing the internet a favor by preventing confusion, and it is rude to send them a bunch of traffic.

See https://www.iana.org/help/example-domains

> While incidental traffic for incorrectly configured applications is expected, please do not design applications that require the example domains to have operating HTTP service.

According to wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com

> for documentation purposes

[TMWNN]

Thank you for the clarification. That said, the example (pun unintended) I replied to is in the context of email, not HTTP.