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I think it's particularly interesting that the US use .gov and not .gov.us (as a Brit). I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently internati

I think it's particularly interesting that the US use .gov and not .gov.us (as a Brit). I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain, but for example here in the UK .gov.uk domains have a strict application process [0] managed by central government. It just seems to me that it would be more secure, and more reassuring to citizens and visitors that they are on the correct site it's under a cctld that's clearly affiliated to and managed by that government. 0: https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-and-manage-a-gov-uk-domain-name https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-and-manage-a-gov-uk-domain-name -- Edit: turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US. The possibility of the US government creating a .gov specifically to confuse uses in a foreign country isn't ideal. I get it, you invented the internet, but the special status you have over it is a little frustrating. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/M-23-10-DOTGOV-Act-Guidance.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/M-23-1...

mozman 3y ago
Fun fact: I briefly had a .gov domain in the early 90s through internic until they figured out I was not a government agency
0xE1337DAD 3y ago
.mil too
tnel77 3y ago
>>I get it, you invented the internet, but the special status you have over it is a little frustrating. america music intensifies
dmatech 3y ago
Interestingly, .edu is mostly only for US universities, but there are a bunch of exceptions. Basically, there used to be several "generic TLDs"[1] in addition to the "country code TLDs" (of which ".su" for Soviet Union still exists), but they mostly got converted into sponsored TLDs. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain
OJFord 3y ago
Isn't it just that .gov is the US one? Like .com vs. .co.uk (though since it's not actually important that's blurred) or .org vs. .org.uk. Or .edu vs. .ac.uk; .mil vs. .mod.uk. They got there first and just spread over TLDs before consigning other nations to fit under one I suppose.
- newshackr 3y ago
  I was under the impression that the US government controls / owns .gov
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    Yes, exactly. .gov is US-specific and controlled by the US government.
  - OJFord 3y ago
    Yes exactly. So there's no need to use gov.us, but there isn't a 'ukgov' TLD, so gov.uk makes sense.
- sigmoid10 3y ago
  .com, .org and nearly all original TLDs are used internationally, though there are also local derivatives like co.uk. Even .edu used to be available internationally. I suppose most people have realized by now that .gov is strictly US, but it's not like that was obvious from the naming scheme alone.
paxys 3y ago
.gov is managed by the US government in the exact way you describe. There is nothing "inherently international" about it. It isn't meant for anyone outside of US government agencies.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Let's be specific though: .gov is available for any government within these United States, whether it be federal, state, local municipality, territorial, or tribal government. In fact, all major cities I just spot-checked have .gov domains. I wonder how many are clinging to <city>.<state>.us? At least as a CNAME? ...none of those which I just spot-checked. Plenty of exceptions abound, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#Use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#Use
  - ShakataGaNai 3y ago
    I remember back in the day when the highschool website & email was: school.district.k12.ca.us . Basically no one uses those because they were too long and hard to remember. My old school district doesn't use the higher level, the school doesn't use the full name. In fact, they don't even resolve in DNS anymore. Some districts now have the schools under their new domain, some schools do their own thing.
    - tkanarsky 3y ago
      Huh, same! I remember the changeover happened sometime around fifth grade, so 2011-12 for our district? (Strangely enough our school's wifi used WEP until 2014ish. I remember the password was obviously contrived to the right length)
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      I never had a problem remembering such domains, because I found them logical. In fact, in 1996, I registered such a domain that was <street address>.<city>.<state>.us. I figured this was the most accessible one for all four of our roommates to use, and there was no cost at the time. Come to find out that the k12.ca.us. domain is completely defunct! There is no SOA for it, and WHOIS indicates it's inactive. k12.ny.us. seems to be in the same condition. However, there are still k12.<state>.us. domains in other parts of these USA. If you search for them, you can find websites and email addresses under that hierarchy.
deleted 3y ago
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easton 3y ago
My guess is that it’s because the US built the thing, they decided .gov was to be for US Government sites. Then when other countries joined they got their own TLDs, which they added a .gov.<tld> to for their own purposes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov (Which seems to make my guess right, .gov is operated by the US Government)
- frankfrankfrank 3y ago
  [dead]
- jomar 3y ago
  That was introduced in 1985, almost 40 years ago. For how many decades is this going to be a reasonable argument? In 100 years, will it still be reasonable for the USA to say "we built the thing, so it is appropriate for us to continue to be the default country in domain names. The rest of you must use your ccTLDs, but we remain special." In 200 years? The only non-pathetic option is for the United States to transition to using its .us ccTLD for governmental and military domains in particular, with .edu and probably some others not far behind. The only question is how gradual the process is, and when it starts.
  - granzymes 3y ago
    Country calling codes date from the 60s and yet the US (and Canada?) are still +1. The real answer is that it’s way too much work to change now for essentially no benefit, so it will probably continue indefinitely unless a new system supplants the current internet.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      That's silly; registering new domain names and putting redirects in place is much simpler than changing a freakin' country code.
      - eganist 3y ago
pc86 3y ago
> it's under a cctld that clearly affiliated to and managed by that government. Maybe this is my latent American nationalism showing, but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government? I think this bit was added as an edit or maybe I just missed it: > an inherently international .gov domain .gov is not inherently international for all the reasons in this subthread (and probably others as well)
- pests 3y ago
  I don't think thats clear at all. We have three people in this thread already confused on the issue. I think the poster wasn't talking of the US government but of knowing which government a domain is related to by just looking at it. ".gov" is not clear while ".gov.uk" is clear due to the ccTLD. > but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government I would say no. What makes it clear to you?
  - DANmode 3y ago
    > What makes it clear to you? Load any name on the TLD, lol, what? I understand the point you're arguing for, and mostly agree!, but the end-around is...weird.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    > What makes it clear to you? Not the OP, but also American. For me it's clear because I've never seen a US government site on a non-.gov domain (though apparently some obscure ones exist as this submission points out), nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov.
    - pests 3y ago
      > some obscure ones exist The submission includes over 400 domains for the federal only list. That is more than "some obscure ones" > nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov How often are you going to non-US-government government sites? Being an American I could imagine you hardly if ever interact with any other government sites so maybe that could be attributed to selection bias.
Teever 3y ago
https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-the-United-Kingdom-have-the-name-of-the-country-on-its-stamps?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-the-United-Kingdom-have-the...
- samwillis 3y ago
  That's settled, we're even. > Why doesn't the United Kingdom have the name of the country on its stamps? > Because the United Kingdom had the privilege of being the first country in the world to introduce postage stamps, meaning that they did not need to be identified as coming from that country, especially when used domestically.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
"turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US. I get it, you invented the internet, but the special status you have over it is a little frustrating." I bet America having +1 as our country code bothers you too :P America numba 1! /S
- Aaron2222 3y ago
  Hate to break it to you, but Canada uses +1 as well[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Canada
  - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
    That's because the Canadians haven't accepted the fact that their provinces are just new states waiting for annexation.
ourmandave 3y ago
Do .gov's have to be renewed every year with ICANN? What if a dept lets theirs lapse and some squatter swoops in and takes it? We'll start the bidding at $1B USD...
- ourmandave 3y ago
  During the government shutdown some TLS certificates expired, so depending how long it goes a domain renewal could get missed because nobody is working or the check bounces.
- xmprt 3y ago
  I'll pay for the domain if you find a way to buy a .gov as easily as you can buy a .com. I don't even think a regular citizen can get a .gov unless you incorporate a new city or something like that.
- chungy 3y ago
  the gov TLD is managed by the US government. It's very rare that you renew anything with ICANN, since you're almost always going at least to the entity that manages a TLD (unless you run a TLD, then I guess there'd be an ICANN fee). If you have a .com domain, you're renewing with VeriSign, the company that owns the com TLD.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    Currently, the .gov sTLD is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
- thiht 3y ago
  You’re confusing TLDs and domain names.
  - 8organicbits 3y ago
    ICANN has lots of rules around TLD assignment, so squatting .gov doesn't seem possible. But some have recurring cost. Here's gTLDs: > a fixed fee of US$6,250 per calendar quarter; (b) and a transaction fee of US$0.25. [1] .gov is not a gTLD, I'm not sure what financial relationship exists, if any. [1] https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs/faqs-en https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...
bombcar 3y ago
.com and .net and .org are only "internationally available" because the registrars didn't care to restrict them (IIRC, one of them was moderately restrictive in the beginning, perhaps .org requiring an actual organization of some sort). .mil is also US only. The real hotness is to host on .arpa - https://blog.fhrnet.eu/2019/03/13/fun-with-arpa-domains/ https://blog.fhrnet.eu/2019/03/13/fun-with-arpa-domains/
- snowwrestler 3y ago
  The TLD .org was originally for non-profits, to distinguish them from the for-profit companies found over at the .com TLD. In the beginning, you had to prove nonprofit status to get a .org domain. That’s no longer required, but still there was a big fight a few years ago when the .org registrar was set to be sold to a private equity firm. It’s the TLD of choice for nonprofits, as an echo of that early restriction.
dec0dedab0de 3y ago
This got me thinking about cookie scope, and I have a feeling that domaina.tld. and domainb.tld. is always safer than domaina.gov.tl. and domainb.gov.tld. I might be way off here, but I think that means either domain could set a gov.tld cookie which is sent to all domains, and if one of them is reading cookies without checking scope it could be a way to send whatever to another server. Or even worse, if one of the sites is using gov.uk cookies for something sensitive, then any of the others could read it. Does anyone know if browsers have special cookie scope considerations for things like .gov.uk and .co.uk?
- CodesInChaos 3y ago
  Browsers use the public suffix list to determine cookie scope. So .co.uk domains are just as isolated from each other as .com domains. You can even get your own domains added to it, typically because you allow users to host their own content on a subdomain (like github.io for github pages). https://publicsuffix.org/ https://publicsuffix.org/
- deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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evanb 3y ago
The UK doesn't put the country of origin on their postage stamps, because they invented them [1], so there were no ambiguities to lift. That's the same reason the US is +1 country code and holds .gov [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_history_of_Great_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_hist...
- N19PEDL2 3y ago
  Also the same reason, I guess, English-speaking countries have 0 and 1 as country codes in ISBN numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISBN_registration_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISBN_registration_grou...
  - JNRowe 3y ago
    There was an interesting use case for the early zero language code. It allowed the checksum to remain intact when switching from early SBN to ISBN, all you had to do was prefix with zero. It isn't quite so simple today, if you find an old British book you can't simply tack a zero on the front. It is mentioned in the Wikipedia link, but buried a little. I realise ISBN history is the epitome of super-nerdy, but the evolution path from $just_some_retailer through to the Bookland "country" is really quite interesting from an interoperability perspective.
SeanLuke 3y ago
Note that .gov predates .uk. .gov was made in 1984, and .uk was issued in 1985.
- DamonHD 3y ago
  And I think that my company issued the first .gov.uk, which would have been about a decade later...
LelouBil 3y ago
Even in France most government websites use ".gouv.fr" (gouv is short for gouvernement, aka government). Even if it's not exactly ".gov" they still mimicked it.
- LordShredda 3y ago
  Much like the gouv.qc.ca suffix.
gumby 3y ago
> I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain, There's .INT if you have a use for one. > turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US. This goes back to when the DNS was designed in the late 70s. Things were different back then (remember the big-endian british addresses, gb.corp.foo IIRC). And I see you haven't learnt about .MIL yet either...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

mozman 3y ago

Fun fact: I briefly had a .gov domain in the early 90s through internic until they figured out I was not a government agency

0xE1337DAD 3y ago

.mil too

tnel77 3y ago

>>I get it, you invented the internet, but the special status you have over it is a little frustrating. america music intensifies

dmatech 3y ago

Interestingly, .edu is mostly only for US universities, but there are a bunch of exceptions. Basically, there used to be several "generic TLDs"[1] in addition to the "country code TLDs" (of which ".su" for Soviet Union still exists), but they mostly got converted into sponsored TLDs. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain

OJFord 3y ago

Isn't it just that .gov is the US one? Like .com vs. .co.uk (though since it's not actually important that's blurred) or .org vs. .org.uk. Or .edu vs. .ac.uk; .mil vs. .mod.uk. They got there first and just spread over TLDs before consigning other nations to fit under one I suppose.

newshackr 3y ago
I was under the impression that the US government controls / owns .gov
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  Yes, exactly. .gov is US-specific and controlled by the US government.
- OJFord 3y ago
  Yes exactly. So there's no need to use gov.us, but there isn't a 'ukgov' TLD, so gov.uk makes sense.
sigmoid10 3y ago
.com, .org and nearly all original TLDs are used internationally, though there are also local derivatives like co.uk. Even .edu used to be available internationally. I suppose most people have realized by now that .gov is strictly US, but it's not like that was obvious from the naming scheme alone.

paxys 3y ago

.gov is managed by the US government in the exact way you describe. There is nothing "inherently international" about it. It isn't meant for anyone outside of US government agencies.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Let's be specific though: .gov is available for any government within these United States, whether it be federal, state, local municipality, territorial, or tribal government. In fact, all major cities I just spot-checked have .gov domains. I wonder how many are clinging to <city>.<state>.us? At least as a CNAME? ...none of those which I just spot-checked. Plenty of exceptions abound, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#Use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#Use
- ShakataGaNai 3y ago
  I remember back in the day when the highschool website & email was: school.district.k12.ca.us . Basically no one uses those because they were too long and hard to remember. My old school district doesn't use the higher level, the school doesn't use the full name. In fact, they don't even resolve in DNS anymore. Some districts now have the schools under their new domain, some schools do their own thing.
  - tkanarsky 3y ago
    Huh, same! I remember the changeover happened sometime around fifth grade, so 2011-12 for our district? (Strangely enough our school's wifi used WEP until 2014ish. I remember the password was obviously contrived to the right length)
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    I never had a problem remembering such domains, because I found them logical. In fact, in 1996, I registered such a domain that was <street address>.<city>.<state>.us. I figured this was the most accessible one for all four of our roommates to use, and there was no cost at the time. Come to find out that the k12.ca.us. domain is completely defunct! There is no SOA for it, and WHOIS indicates it's inactive. k12.ny.us. seems to be in the same condition. However, there are still k12.<state>.us. domains in other parts of these USA. If you search for them, you can find websites and email addresses under that hierarchy.

deleted 3y ago

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easton 3y ago

My guess is that it’s because the US built the thing, they decided .gov was to be for US Government sites. Then when other countries joined they got their own TLDs, which they added a .gov.<tld> to for their own purposes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov (Which seems to make my guess right, .gov is operated by the US Government)

frankfrankfrank 3y ago
[dead]
jomar 3y ago
That was introduced in 1985, almost 40 years ago. For how many decades is this going to be a reasonable argument? In 100 years, will it still be reasonable for the USA to say "we built the thing, so it is appropriate for us to continue to be the default country in domain names. The rest of you must use your ccTLDs, but we remain special." In 200 years? The only non-pathetic option is for the United States to transition to using its .us ccTLD for governmental and military domains in particular, with .edu and probably some others not far behind. The only question is how gradual the process is, and when it starts.
- granzymes 3y ago
  Country calling codes date from the 60s and yet the US (and Canada?) are still +1. The real answer is that it’s way too much work to change now for essentially no benefit, so it will probably continue indefinitely unless a new system supplants the current internet.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    That's silly; registering new domain names and putting redirects in place is much simpler than changing a freakin' country code.
    - eganist 3y ago

pc86 3y ago

> it's under a cctld that clearly affiliated to and managed by that government. Maybe this is my latent American nationalism showing, but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government? I think this bit was added as an edit or maybe I just missed it: > an inherently international .gov domain .gov is not inherently international for all the reasons in this subthread (and probably others as well)

pests 3y ago
I don't think thats clear at all. We have three people in this thread already confused on the issue. I think the poster wasn't talking of the US government but of knowing which government a domain is related to by just looking at it. ".gov" is not clear while ".gov.uk" is clear due to the ccTLD. > but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government I would say no. What makes it clear to you?
- DANmode 3y ago
  > What makes it clear to you? Load any name on the TLD, lol, what? I understand the point you're arguing for, and mostly agree!, but the end-around is...weird.
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  > What makes it clear to you? Not the OP, but also American. For me it's clear because I've never seen a US government site on a non-.gov domain (though apparently some obscure ones exist as this submission points out), nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov.
  - pests 3y ago
    > some obscure ones exist The submission includes over 400 domains for the federal only list. That is more than "some obscure ones" > nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov How often are you going to non-US-government government sites? Being an American I could imagine you hardly if ever interact with any other government sites so maybe that could be attributed to selection bias.

Teever 3y ago

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-the-United-Kingdom-have-the-name-of-the-country-on-its-stamps?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-the-United-Kingdom-have-the...

samwillis 3y ago
That's settled, we're even. > Why doesn't the United Kingdom have the name of the country on its stamps? > Because the United Kingdom had the privilege of being the first country in the world to introduce postage stamps, meaning that they did not need to be identified as coming from that country, especially when used domestically.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

"turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US. I get it, you invented the internet, but the special status you have over it is a little frustrating." I bet America having +1 as our country code bothers you too :P America numba 1! /S

Aaron2222 3y ago
Hate to break it to you, but Canada uses +1 as well[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Canada
- freitzkriesler2 3y ago
  That's because the Canadians haven't accepted the fact that their provinces are just new states waiting for annexation.

ourmandave 3y ago

Do .gov's have to be renewed every year with ICANN? What if a dept lets theirs lapse and some squatter swoops in and takes it? We'll start the bidding at $1B USD...

ourmandave 3y ago
During the government shutdown some TLS certificates expired, so depending how long it goes a domain renewal could get missed because nobody is working or the check bounces.
xmprt 3y ago
I'll pay for the domain if you find a way to buy a .gov as easily as you can buy a .com. I don't even think a regular citizen can get a .gov unless you incorporate a new city or something like that.
chungy 3y ago
the gov TLD is managed by the US government. It's very rare that you renew anything with ICANN, since you're almost always going at least to the entity that manages a TLD (unless you run a TLD, then I guess there'd be an ICANN fee). If you have a .com domain, you're renewing with VeriSign, the company that owns the com TLD.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Currently, the .gov sTLD is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
thiht 3y ago
You’re confusing TLDs and domain names.
- 8organicbits 3y ago
  ICANN has lots of rules around TLD assignment, so squatting .gov doesn't seem possible. But some have recurring cost. Here's gTLDs: > a fixed fee of US$6,250 per calendar quarter; (b) and a transaction fee of US$0.25. [1] .gov is not a gTLD, I'm not sure what financial relationship exists, if any. [1] https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs/faqs-en https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...

bombcar 3y ago

.com and .net and .org are only "internationally available" because the registrars didn't care to restrict them (IIRC, one of them was moderately restrictive in the beginning, perhaps .org requiring an actual organization of some sort). .mil is also US only. The real hotness is to host on .arpa - https://blog.fhrnet.eu/2019/03/13/fun-with-arpa-domains/ https://blog.fhrnet.eu/2019/03/13/fun-with-arpa-domains/

snowwrestler 3y ago
The TLD .org was originally for non-profits, to distinguish them from the for-profit companies found over at the .com TLD. In the beginning, you had to prove nonprofit status to get a .org domain. That’s no longer required, but still there was a big fight a few years ago when the .org registrar was set to be sold to a private equity firm. It’s the TLD of choice for nonprofits, as an echo of that early restriction.

dec0dedab0de 3y ago

This got me thinking about cookie scope, and I have a feeling that domaina.tld. and domainb.tld. is always safer than domaina.gov.tl. and domainb.gov.tld. I might be way off here, but I think that means either domain could set a gov.tld cookie which is sent to all domains, and if one of them is reading cookies without checking scope it could be a way to send whatever to another server. Or even worse, if one of the sites is using gov.uk cookies for something sensitive, then any of the others could read it. Does anyone know if browsers have special cookie scope considerations for things like .gov.uk and .co.uk?

CodesInChaos 3y ago
Browsers use the public suffix list to determine cookie scope. So .co.uk domains are just as isolated from each other as .com domains. You can even get your own domains added to it, typically because you allow users to host their own content on a subdomain (like github.io for github pages). https://publicsuffix.org/ https://publicsuffix.org/
deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

evanb 3y ago

The UK doesn't put the country of origin on their postage stamps, because they invented them [1], so there were no ambiguities to lift. That's the same reason the US is +1 country code and holds .gov [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_history_of_Great_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_hist...

N19PEDL2 3y ago
Also the same reason, I guess, English-speaking countries have 0 and 1 as country codes in ISBN numbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISBN_registration_groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISBN_registration_grou...
- JNRowe 3y ago
  There was an interesting use case for the early zero language code. It allowed the checksum to remain intact when switching from early SBN to ISBN, all you had to do was prefix with zero. It isn't quite so simple today, if you find an old British book you can't simply tack a zero on the front. It is mentioned in the Wikipedia link, but buried a little. I realise ISBN history is the epitome of super-nerdy, but the evolution path from $just_some_retailer through to the Bookland "country" is really quite interesting from an interoperability perspective.

SeanLuke 3y ago

Note that .gov predates .uk. .gov was made in 1984, and .uk was issued in 1985.

DamonHD 3y ago
And I think that my company issued the first .gov.uk, which would have been about a decade later...

LelouBil 3y ago

Even in France most government websites use ".gouv.fr" (gouv is short for gouvernement, aka government). Even if it's not exactly ".gov" they still mimicked it.

LordShredda 3y ago
Much like the gouv.qc.ca suffix.

gumby 3y ago

> I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain, There's .INT if you have a use for one. > turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US. This goes back to when the DNS was designed in the late 70s. Things were different back then (remember the big-endian british addresses, gb.corp.foo IIRC). And I see you haven't learnt about .MIL yet either...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]