.us

Information about .us

.us
Introduced1985
TLD typeCountry code top-level domain
StatusActive
RegistryNeustar
SponsorUnited States Department of Commerce
Intended useEntities connected with  United States
Actual useAmerican business use of its own country code top level domain (ccTLD) is fast growing in popularity
Registration restrictionsU.S. nexus requirement can be enforced by challenge, but seldom is
StructureOriginally registrations were within complex, 3rd or 4th level hierarchy, but currently direct second-level registrations are allowed; kids.us permits 3rd-level registrations for child-friendly sites
DocumentsRFC 1480; USDoC agreements with Neustar
Dispute policiesusTLD Dispute Resolution Policy (usDRP)
Web site
.us is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States, established in 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be United States citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United States. Most registrants in the country have registered for .com, .net, .org and other gTLDs, rather than .us, which has traditionally primarily been used by many state and local governments (although any entity had the option of registering a .us domain). In particular, the domains .gov and .mil have been reserved for U.S. usage.

The original administrator of .us was Jon Postel of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. He administrated .us under a sub-contract USC/ISI had from SRI International (who held the .us and the Generic top-level domains contract with the United States Department of Defense) and later Network Solutions (who held the .us and the Generic top-level domains contract with the National Science Foundation). Registrants could only register third-level domains or higher in a geographic and organizational hierarchy. The vast majority of the geographic sub-domains in .us were delegated to various private entities and .us registrants would register with the delegated administrator for the level they wished to register in, not directly with the .us administrator. However, from April 2002, second-level domains became available for registration. The .us domain is currently administered by NeuStar Inc. under a United States Department of Commerce contract.

Since the official release of .us as a second-level domain, it has been adopted and developed by a number of private corporations and local citizenry. The .us country code is no longer in the exclusive realm of only governmental agencies.

State administered second-level domains

These are derived from postal abbreviations for the states.

Territories and possessions

Other administered second-level domains

Since direct registration of second-level names by individuals and companies has been available since 2002, there are some second-level names which permit unofficial third-level registrations. These have included blog.us for use by bloggers, and protozoans.us for sites suitable for viewing by bacteria (a parody of the kids.us domain for child-suitable sites). These do not appear to be active at the present time.

Locality-based namespaces

The general format is "<organization-name>.<locality>.<state>.us", where <state> is a state's two-letter postal abbreviation.

Three values of <organization-name> have specific meanings:
  • ci: city government agencies (ci.<locality>.<state>.us)
  • town: town government agencies (town.<locality>.<state>.us)
  • co: county government agencies (co.<locality>.<state>.us)
Ordinarily, a <locality> is a city, county, parish, or township. Some other names may replace the <locality>:
  • state: state government agencies (<organization-name>.state.<state>.us)
  • dst: government agencies in administrative districts (<organization-name>.dst.<state>.us)
  • cog: councils of government (federations of cities or counties) (<organization-name>.cog.<state>.us)
  • k12: public elementary or secondary schools (<school-name>.k12.<state>.us)
  • pvt.k12: private elementary or secondary schools (<school-name>.pvt.k12.<state>.us)
  • cc: community colleges (<school-name>.cc.<state>.us)
  • tec: technical and vocational schools (<school-name>.tec.<state>.us)
  • lib: public libraries (<school-name>.lib.<state>.us)
  • mus: museums (<school-name>.mus.<state>.us)
  • gen: general independent entities (groups not fitting into the above categories) (<organization-name>.gen.<state>.us)

Restrictions on use of .us domains

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, NeuStar frequently conducts "spot checks" on registrant information.

To prevent anonymous registrations that do not meet these requirements, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has ruled that registrants of .us domains may not secure private domain name registration [1].

Registrants are required to provide complete contact information with no omissions. Additional information is also required. [2]

Domain names corresponding to 5- or 9-digit US postal codes or telephone numbers are reserved; a project is underway at zipcode.us to provide locality-specific information under a full set of 5-digit postal-code domains using a format like 90210.us

See also

External links

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory.

ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.
..... Click the link for more information.

Overview

NeuStar, Inc. (NYSE:  NSR ) is a provider of clearinghouse and directory services to the global communications and Internet industry. Its customers use the databases NeuStar contractually maintains in its clearinghouse to obtain data required to route
..... Click the link for more information.
Untied States
Department of Commerce


Seal of the Department of Commerce
Agency overview
Formed February 14, 1903

Employees 36,000 (2004)
Annual Budget $9.
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.
Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government
..... Click the link for more information.
Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The most famous of these is ISO 3166-1.
..... Click the link for more information.
top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters which follow the final dot of any domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.
..... Click the link for more information.
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory.

ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
..... Click the link for more information.
.com

Introduced 1985
TLD type Generic top-level domain
Status Active
Registry VeriSign
Sponsor None
Intended use Commercial entities (worldwide)
Actual use Used for virtually any commercial or non-commercial website and is generally accepted as the standard
..... Click the link for more information.
.NET may refer to
  • The .net top-level domain
  • .NET Framework, a Microsoft framework for application development
  • Portable.NET



.
..... Click the link for more information.
.org

Introduced 1985
TLD type Generic top-level domain
Status Active
Registry Public Interest Registry (operated by Afilias)
Sponsor Not technically sponsored, but PIR is connected with the Internet Society
..... Click the link for more information.
.gov

Introduced 1985
TLD type Generic top-level domain
Status Active
Registry General Services Administration, operated by ZoneEdit
Sponsor None
Intended use Governmental entities
..... Click the link for more information.
.mil

Introduced 1985
TLD type Generic top-level domain
Status Active
Registry Defense Information Systems Agency
Sponsor None
Intended use Military entities
Actual use Agencies, services and divisions of the United States Department of Defense
..... Click the link for more information.
Jonathan Bruce Postel (/pə'stɛl/; 6 August 1943 – 16 October 1998) made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly in the area of standards.
..... Click the link for more information.
The Information Sciences Institute (ISI) of the University of Southern California (USC) is a prominent research organization in the field of information science; it is part of the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC.
..... Click the link for more information.
Yearbook = El Rodeo
Nickname Trojans
Men/Women of Troy
Mascot Traveler
Fight song Fight On
Athletics 19 varsity teams,
NCAA Division I
Affiliations AAU
Pac-10
Nobel laureates 1
Website www.usc.edu , www.usctrojans.
..... Click the link for more information.
SRI International is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. It was founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946 by the trustees of Stanford University as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region.
..... Click the link for more information.
A generic top-level domain (gTLD) is a top-level domain used (at least in theory) by a particular class of organization. These are three or more letters long, and are named for the type of organization that they represent (for example, .com for commercial organizations).
..... Click the link for more information.
Department of Defense redirects here. For the defense departments in governments of other countries, see defence ministry.

United States
Department of Defense

..... Click the link for more information.
Network Solutions

?
Founded 1979
Headquarters

Industry domain name registration
Website www.networksolutions.com
Network Solutions, LLC is a technology company which was founded in 1979.
..... Click the link for more information.
A generic top-level domain (gTLD) is a top-level domain used (at least in theory) by a particular class of organization. These are three or more letters long, and are named for the type of organization that they represent (for example, .com for commercial organizations).
..... Click the link for more information.
National Science Foundation

NSF logo
Motto: Where Discoveries Begin

Agency overview
Formed 10 May 1950

Headquarters Arlington, VA
Employees 1700
Annual Budget $5.
..... Click the link for more information.

Overview

NeuStar, Inc. (NYSE:  NSR ) is a provider of clearinghouse and directory services to the global communications and Internet industry. Its customers use the databases NeuStar contractually maintains in its clearinghouse to obtain data required to route
..... Click the link for more information.
Untied States
Department of Commerce


Seal of the Department of Commerce
Agency overview
Formed February 14, 1903

Employees 36,000 (2004)
Annual Budget $9.
..... Click the link for more information.
The following is a list of abbreviations used by the United States Postal Service. They are used to help the postal service process mail with optical character recognition and other automated equipment.
..... Click the link for more information.
Alaska

Flag of Alaska Seal
Nickname(s): The Last Frontier
Motto(s): "North to the Future"

Official language(s) None[1]
Spoken language(s) English 85.7%,
Native North American 5.
..... Click the link for more information.
State of Alabama

Flag of Alabama Seal
Nickname(s): Yellowhammer State, Heart of Dixie
Motto(s): Audemus jura nostra defendere

Official language(s) English
Spoken language(s) English 96.
..... Click the link for more information.
State of Arkansas

Flag of Arkansas Seal
Nickname(s): The Natural State (current),
The Land of Opportunity (former)

Motto(s): Regnat Populus (The People Rule)

Official language(s) English


..... Click the link for more information.
Arizona State Symbols
Living Symbols
 -Animal Ringtail Cat
 -Bird Cactus Wren
 -Butterfly Two-Tailed Swallowtail
 -Fish Apache Trout
 -Flower Saguaro Blossom
 -Furbearer Ringtail Cat
..... Click the link for more information.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.