.us

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Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox top level domain

us is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States. It was established in February 1985. Registrants of us domains must be U.S. citizens, residents, or organizations – or foreign entities with a presence in the United States or a territory of the United States.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Most registrants in the U.S. have registered for .com, .net, .org and other gTLDs, instead of us, which has primarily been used by state and local governments, even though private entities may also register us domains.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The domain is managed by Registry Services, LLC, an acquired subsidiary domain name registry of GoDaddy, on behalf of the United States Department of Commerce.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Domain us is less commonly used by American businesses and enterprises than the internationally more common com.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

On February 15, 1985, us was created as the Internet's first ccTLD.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Its original administrator was Jon Postel of the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California (USC). He administered us under a subcontract that the ISI and USC had from SRI International (which held the us and the gTLD contract with the United States Department of Defense) and later Network Solutions (which held the us and the gTLD contract with the National Science Foundation).

Postel and his colleague Ann Westine Cooper<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> codified the us ccTLD's policies in December 1992 as RFC 1386<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and revised them the following June in RFC 1480. Registrants could only register third-level domains or higher in a geographic and organizational hierarchy. From June 1993 to June 1997, Postel delegated the vast majority of the geographic subdomains under us to various public and private entities. us registrants could register with the delegated manager for the specific zone they wished to register in, but not directly with the us administrator. In July 1997, Postel instituted a "50/500 rule" that limited each delegated manager to 500 localities maximum, 50 in a given state.<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" />

In June 1998, Postel raised the possibility of covering IANA operating costs by charging locality name registrars, who would pass the costs along to individual registrants. In September 1998, the United States Postal Service proposed funding the operations in order to assume control of us, as part of a plan to diversify away from postage revenue.Template:Sfn On October 1, 1998, the NSF transferred oversight of the us domain to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the United States Department of Commerce.<ref>Requesting comments on draft statement of work regarding us </ref> Postel died that month, leaving his domain administration responsibilities with ISI. In December 2000, these responsibilities were transferred to Network Solutions, which had recently been acquired by Verisign.<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" /><ref>Amendment 21 to the NSI Cooperative Agreement</ref><ref>THE GLOBALISATION OF REGULATION AND ITS IMPACT ON THE DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM : DOMAIN NAMES AND A NEW REGULATORY ECONOMY by ELIZABETH A WILLIAMS</ref>

On October 26, 2001, Neustar was awarded the contract to administer us. On April 24, 2002, second-level domains under us became available for registration. One of the first us domain hacks, icio.us, was registered on May 3, 2002, for the creation of the subdomain del.icio.us.<ref>Whois query for the domain names "DELICIO.US" and "ICIO.US". Whois database last updated March 29, 2015. Accessed March 29, 2015.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A moratorium was placed on additional delegations of locality-based namespaces, and Neustar became the default delegate for undelegated localities.<ref>Manheim, Karl M. and Solum, Lawrence B., "An Economic Analysis of Domain Name Policy" (2004). University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series. 1. http://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_econ/art1</ref> Neustar's contract was renewed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in 2007 and most recently in 2014.<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On March 31, 2019, the us registry made it clear that under its Acceptable Use Policy it would not allow the sale of opioids through the us top level domain.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In Q2 2020, GoDaddy acquired Neustar's registry business.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>

Locality namespace

The us ccTLD is historically organized under a complex locality namespace hierarchy. Until second-level registrations were introduced in 2002, us permitted only fourth-level domain registrations of the form Template:Var.Template:Var.Template:Var.us, with some exceptions for government entities. Registrants of locality-based domains must meet the same criteria as in the rest of the us ccTLD. Though the locality namespace is most commonly used for government entities, it is also open to registrations by private businesses and individuals. Since 2002, second-level domain registrations have eclipsed those in the locality namespace, and many local governments have transitioned to .org and other TLDs.<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" /> In the 2010s, the first top-level domains for U.S. cities became available as paid alternatives to third-level locality domains, including .nyc as an alternative to .new-york.ny.us.

Many locality-based zones of us are delegated to various public and private entities known as delegated managers. Domains in these zones are registered through the delegated manager, rather than through GoDaddy. As the delegated managers are expected to receive requests directly from registrants, few if any domain name registrars serve this space, possibly contributing to its lower visibility and utilization. RFC 1480 describes the rationale for the locality namespace's deep hierarchy and local delegation:<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" />

Template:Blockquote

This hierarchical system has proven unappealing to companies that operate nationally or globally.Template:Sfn

As of October 31, 2013, 12,979 domains were registered under the locality namespace, of which 3,653 were managed by about 1,300 delegated managers while 9,326 were managed by Neustar as the de facto manager.<ref name="Neustar structure">Template:Cite web</ref> According to a 2013 survey of 539 delegated managers, 282 were state or local government agencies, while 98 were private individuals and 85 were commercial Internet service providers. Nearly 90% of the respondents offer domain registrations for free.<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" />

The .au and .ca ccTLDs have also established third- and fourth-level locality namespaces, though the .ca locality namespace is no longer open to registrations. The .cn ccTLD maintains a third-level locality namespace in general use.

States and territories Template:Anchor

A two-letter second-level domain is formally reserved for each U.S. state, federal territory, and the District of Columbia. Each domain corresponds to a USPS abbreviation. For example, .ny.us is reserved for websites affiliated with New York, while .va.us is for those affiliated with Virginia. Second-level domains are also reserved for five U.S. territories: .as.us for American Samoa, .gu.us for Guam, .mp.us for the Northern Mariana Islands, .pr.us for Puerto Rico, and .vi.us for the U.S. Virgin Islands. However, these domains go unused because each territory has its own ccTLD per ISO 3166-1 alpha-2: respectively, .as, .gu, .mp, .pr, and .vi.

File:Pennsylvanian license plate, 2000.jpg
Vehicle registration plates of Pennsylvania bore the URL Template:URL from September 1999 to December 2004.

A state's main government portal is usually found at the third-level domain state.Template:Var.us, which is reserved for this purpose. However, some state administrations prefer .gov domains: for example, California's government portal is located at Template:URL. Other than for state governments, no third-level domain registrations are permitted under state or territory second-level domains.

A few additional names are reserved at the second level for government agencies that are not subordinate to a state government:

Locality domains

A large number of third-level domains are reserved for localities within states. Each fourth-level domain registration under this namespace follows the format Template:Var.Template:Var.Template:Var.us, where Template:Var is a state's two-letter postal abbreviation and Template:Var is a hyphenated name that corresponds to a ZIP code or appears in a well-known atlas.<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013">Template:Cite web</ref> Some delegated managers alternatively register domains under common abbreviations of locality names, such as:

Two values of Template:Var are formally reserved across the entire locality namespace for city and county governments:<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" />

Delegated managers often reserve additional names for different kinds of local governments:<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" />

In some cases, a local government that serves as the delegated manager for its own locality may locate its website directly under the Template:Var, omitting the Template:Var. For example, the website of the City of Brunswick, Ohio, is located at Template:URL rather than www.ci.brunswick.oh.us, and the website of Delhi Township, Ohio, is located at Template:URL instead of www.twp.delhi.oh.us. Unusually, Lima, Ohio, is located at Template:URL.

Many large cities use .gov extensions, for example Chicago (Template:URL); Rochester, New York (Template:URL); and Atlanta (Template:URL). Although most New York City websites have moved to Template:URL, us redirects exist for individual city agencies, such as the Independent Budget Office at Template:URL and the Board of Elections at Template:URL.

Private organizations and individuals may register fourth-level domains parallel to these government domains, for example:

Affinity namespaces

Directly beneath the Template:Var.us zone, several affinity namespaces are reserved for specific purposes:

Some of these affinity namespaces have been supplanted by more convenient sponsored top-level domains. The first sTLD, .museum, became available in October 2001 as an alternative to the .mus namespace. Since April 2003, the .edu top-level domain has been available as an alternative for community colleges, technical and vocational schools, and other tertiary educational institutions that might have previously used the .cc or .tec affinity namespaces.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>

Although the Kentucky Department of Education operates the .k12.ky.us namespace for Kentucky school districts, most districts instead use subdomains of the less formal domain kyschools.us, which the department operates in a similar manner. For example, Gallatin county schools have a website at Template:URL, while Paducah Public Schools are located at Template:URL and the McCracken County Public Schools use Template:URL as a redirect to Template:URL.

Kids.us

The Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002 (Template:Uspl) established a .kids.us second-level domain. The general public could register third-level domains under .kids.us for educational content that met strict requirements, including conformance to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and adherence to Children's Advertising Review Unit standards. Webpages were prohibited from linking outside the .kids.us namespace. On July 27, 2012, in response to declining usage and a petition by Neustar the previous year, the NTIA suspended .kids.us registrations. By that time, 651 domains were registered under .kids.us, and only five registrants (Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., PBS Kids, the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, and Super-Fun Sports Inc., operating trampoline.kids.us and trampolines.kids.us) were operating active websites.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Restrictions on use

Under us nexus requirements, us domains may be registered only by the following qualified entities:

  • Any United States citizen or resident,
  • Any United States entity, such as organizations or corporations,
  • Any foreign entity or organization with a bona fide presence in the United States

To ensure that these requirements are met, GoDaddy frequently conducts "spot checks" on registrant information.

To prevent anonymous registrations that do not meet these requirements, in 2005 the National Telecommunications and Information Administration ruled that registrants of us domains may not secure private domain name registration via anonymizing proxies, and that their contact information must be made public.<ref>Template:Cite news </ref> Registrants are required to provide complete contact information without omissions.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Under the locality namespace, delegated managers may impose additional requirements.<ref name="Neustar compliance 2013" /> For example, the former Texas Regional Hostmaster restricted each of its delegated localities to organizations that had a mailing address in that locality.<ref name="TXUS locality">Template:Cite web</ref>

Some sponsored top-level domains (sTLDs) are restricted to U.S.-based entities, other than some grandfathered registrations. These domains are much more popular than the equivalent domains under us.

sTLD Allowed use us alternative
edu Community colleges cc.Template:Var.us
Technical and vocational schools tec.Template:Var.us
gov Federal government agencies fed.us
Tribal governments Template:Var.nsn.us
State governments state.Template:Var.us
Local governments Template:Var.Template:Var.Template:Var.us
mil Armed forces Template:N/a

Territories of the United States use their own country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Identical domains are reserved under us but in practice go unused.

ccTLD Territory us alternative
as Template:Flag as.us
gu Template:Flag gu.us
mp Template:Flag mp.us
pr Template:Flag pr.us
um (deprecated) Template:Flag um.us
vi Template:Flag vi.us

Some U.S. cities are the focus of generic top-level domains under the New gTLD Program. These gTLDs are not necessarily affiliated with the delegated managers of the corresponding third-level domains within the us locality namespace.

gTLD City us alternative
boston Template:Flag boston.ma.us
miami Template:Flag miami.fl.us
nyc Template:Flag new-york.ny.us
nyc.ny.us
vegas Template:Flag las-vegas.nv.us

Unofficially, some ccTLDs belonging to other countries are used by U.S.-based private organizations and state government agencies based on their similarity to postal state abbreviations or informal city name abbreviations.

ccTLD Intended for Informal use us alternative
la Template:Flag Template:Flag la.us
Template:Flag<ref name="investvine">Template:Cite web</ref> la.ca.us
los-angeles.ca.us
mn Template:Flag Template:Flag<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> mn.us
ms Template:Flag Template:Flag<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> ms.us

See also

References

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Further reading

Template:United States top-level domains Template:CcTLD Template:United States topics Template:Americas topic

sv:Toppdomän#U

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