4 ms·

> You can assume that .com is American unless otherwise Why?

crazygringo 10mo ago
Because the internet was invented in America so it's the only country where a country suffix was never used from the start of its popularity. I'm not saying this is good or bad or justified or not, just saying what the conventions are.
- prmoustache 10mo ago
  But there have never been a convention that .com was reserved to the US market. co.uk, com.au, com.mx, com.my and co.jp exist for example, but I have never heard of a co.fr, com.it or co.de or org.dk Bottom line: there is no real convention
- austinjp 10mo ago
  Honestly, unless you're going to say you're confused about .net and .io TLDs this comes across as willfully weaponised naivety.
- keybored 10mo ago
  > Because the internet was invented in America so it's the only country where a country suffix was never used from the start of its popularity. I expect some countries like the UK and Australia to use something like `co.uk`. I expect many countries to use their own top-level domain. I do not assume that some `.com` website is American. Is “the only” based on experience? How many websites from how many countries have you come across? > I'm not saying this is good or bad or justified or not, just saying what the conventions are. Do people associate `.com` with “company”? Or just “regular website”? Are people even stopped from making a `.com` if they don’t have a “company”? https://www.paiste.com/ https://www.paiste.com/ Is this Swiss business allowed to use `.com` because they have offices in the US of A?
  - crazygringo 10mo ago
    > I do not assume that some `.com` website is American. If it's clearly local to somewhere (news, shopping, etc.) as opposed to global or a webapp or something, and doesn't say it's specific to any other country, then yes people generally assume it's American. Because when sites are intended for audiences in other countries, they usually use a country-specific TLD. Which, for historical reasons, never became a convention in the US since it's where the Internet was invented. If you haven't noticed that this is a clear pattern, I don't know what to tell you.
    - prmoustache 10mo ago
      If it is a business, people expect the .com is the global/international/headquarters address, not an us specific one per se. Some will have other country codes mostly to avoid phishing but some only redirect it to a subpath on the com website to handle regionalities/languages. Random examples of foreign brands/companys in completely different industries: https://www.nestle.com https://www.nestle.com is the "global" address of Nestle, a Swiss company. Mitsubushi, a japanes company uses https://www.mitsubishi.com https://www.mitsubishi.com with a /ja subpath to handle japanese language. The FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association which was founded in Paris, France and is know headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, uses fifa.com as its main domain despite having several regional office accross the globe but none in the US.
- GJim 10mo ago
  > Because the internet was invented in America And the web by a Brit working in Switzerland. It all runs on Chinese hardware with software written by people (and their dogs) from every nation on earth. The point, if there is one, is buried in the details.
  - crazygringo 10mo ago
    What does any of that have to do with anything? The subject is DNS names. Here, read the history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System
hdgvhicv 10mo ago
American exceptionalism.

Because the internet was invented in America so it's the only country where a country suffix was never used from the start of its popularity. I'm not saying this is good or bad or justified or not, just saying what the conventions are.

prmoustache 10mo ago
But there have never been a convention that .com was reserved to the US market. co.uk, com.au, com.mx, com.my and co.jp exist for example, but I have never heard of a co.fr, com.it or co.de or org.dk Bottom line: there is no real convention
austinjp 10mo ago
Honestly, unless you're going to say you're confused about .net and .io TLDs this comes across as willfully weaponised naivety.
keybored 10mo ago
> Because the internet was invented in America so it's the only country where a country suffix was never used from the start of its popularity. I expect some countries like the UK and Australia to use something like `co.uk`. I expect many countries to use their own top-level domain. I do not assume that some `.com` website is American. Is “the only” based on experience? How many websites from how many countries have you come across? > I'm not saying this is good or bad or justified or not, just saying what the conventions are. Do people associate `.com` with “company”? Or just “regular website”? Are people even stopped from making a `.com` if they don’t have a “company”? https://www.paiste.com/ https://www.paiste.com/ Is this Swiss business allowed to use `.com` because they have offices in the US of A?
- crazygringo 10mo ago
  > I do not assume that some `.com` website is American. If it's clearly local to somewhere (news, shopping, etc.) as opposed to global or a webapp or something, and doesn't say it's specific to any other country, then yes people generally assume it's American. Because when sites are intended for audiences in other countries, they usually use a country-specific TLD. Which, for historical reasons, never became a convention in the US since it's where the Internet was invented. If you haven't noticed that this is a clear pattern, I don't know what to tell you.
  - prmoustache 10mo ago
    If it is a business, people expect the .com is the global/international/headquarters address, not an us specific one per se. Some will have other country codes mostly to avoid phishing but some only redirect it to a subpath on the com website to handle regionalities/languages. Random examples of foreign brands/companys in completely different industries: https://www.nestle.com https://www.nestle.com is the "global" address of Nestle, a Swiss company. Mitsubushi, a japanes company uses https://www.mitsubishi.com https://www.mitsubishi.com with a /ja subpath to handle japanese language. The FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association which was founded in Paris, France and is know headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, uses fifa.com as its main domain despite having several regional office accross the globe but none in the US.
GJim 10mo ago
> Because the internet was invented in America And the web by a Brit working in Switzerland. It all runs on Chinese hardware with software written by people (and their dogs) from every nation on earth. The point, if there is one, is buried in the details.
- crazygringo 10mo ago
  What does any of that have to do with anything? The subject is DNS names. Here, read the history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System

hdgvhicv 10mo ago

American exceptionalism.