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

N E W   Y O R K, Aug. 28, 2000 -- 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.

Unappealing System

The Commerce Department believes the “.us” real estate isunderpopulated because of the way such addresses are assigned.

A Los Angeles business that sells clothing is thus supposed toregister under “clothingstore.los-angeles.ca.us” rather thansimply “clothingstore.us.”

It’s difficult to remember such a long name. It’s also difficultto figure out who assigns it, since such assignments are delegatedto some 800 individuals and organizations.

So Americans have gravitated instead to “.com,” “.net” and“.org,” which are registered through Network Solutions and othercompanies heavily promoting the ease of doing so.

Under the Commerce Department proposal, a new administratorwould replace the University of Southern California’s InformationSciences Institute — where Internet domain pioneer Jon Postelworked until his death in 1998 — as master keeper of the “.us”domains.

Experts believe such a designated organization or company wouldbe able to market “.us” to commercial entities more effectively.

Dot-Com Overcrowding

The proposal comes as simple dot-com names become harder toobtain.

It is separate from a plan to add a half-dozen or so new globalsuffixes, such as “.movie” and “.shop,” by early next year torelieve some of the dot-com overcrowding.

Michael Sondow, who runs an online forum for individuals,nonprofit groups and smaller businesses, fears that “.us” will“turn into another commodity to be exploited by craven registrarsand their greedy clients.”

“Everyone had hoped that the ‘.us’ would be reorganized as sortof a refuge for the person, noncommercial, nonprofit sector,” hesaid.

Commerce officials offered few details but several questions forthe Internet community, including whether to keep the structuretied to locality and whether to reserve some names for personal,noncommercial use.

Revamping “.us” has been under discussions for at least twoyears. The Commerce Department did not say when it would make afinal ruling.