U.S. Online Users Shun '.US' Names

N E W   Y O R K, Aug. 28 -- Internet addresses tagged with a country code — such as “name.fr” for France — may be a source of national pride around the world, but “.us” is America’s forgotten stepchild.

And that worries the U.S. government, which last week beganseeking suggestions on making “.us” more desirable to helprelieve the crowded field of dot-com addresses.

Good luck.

Changing habits won’t be easy in a country used to endingaddresses with “.com,” “.net” and “.org,” which are supposedto be global identifiers but are dominated by U.S. sites.

A Global Net

Roger Cochetti, a senior vice president at Network SolutionsInc., said the popularity of the global suffixes reflect Americans’vision of the Net as an international medium.

“They are equally comfortable examining museums in France orGreece as they are online museums in the United States,” he said.“They are equally comfortable doing research on a British Web siteor a Canadian Web site.”

Some groups and businesses even prefer other countries’abbreviations — such as “.tv” for Tuvalu and “.md” for Moldova.The use of “.us” is largely limited to local government agencies,schools and community groups, even though it is open to any U.S.site.

Even the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t want it anymore. Though thepost office once considered claiming “.us” for customers, postalspokeswoman Sue Brennan said the agency will now concentrate onassigning e-mail addresses through “usps.com.” It became adot-com this year, dropping allegiances to “.gov” for government.

The “.us” suffix is one of 244 assigned to countries andterritories worldwide. It is such a source of identity thatPalestinians recently obtained “.ps” and the European Union wants“.eu” to unify European businesses.