3 ms·

It should really be .gov.us rather than a top level domain.

• profmonocle 10y ago
  .gov, .mil, and .edu predate the existence of country-code TLDs. They're a legacy of when the Internet was a US government funded research project. You could argue that since the Internet has become a global commercial network, the US should no longer have these special, exclusive TLDs. But switching over would be a ton of work, and there really aren't enough downsides to the US having these domains to justify a change. It's worth noting that .fed.us exists, although hardly any government sites us it. State/city governments often use .[state].us domains since .gov was originally restricted to the federal government, but that restriction was lifted and it's common to see .gov used for state/local governments now as well.
  • em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
    I think it is a nice little historical artifact. When someone asks why, then can tell the story of the internet's creation.
  • belovedeagle 10y ago
    On the other hand, if we put in that effort now we won't have to listen to people who know nothing about how the internet came to be, and are indignant and shocked that the US government should have special treatment, for the next N decades. Seems almost worth it to me...
  • konklone 10y ago
    In fact, there are now way more state/local .gov domains (~4,000) than federal .gov domains (~1,300).