NeuStar to Manage .US Registry

flatt writes: "The US Government picked NeuStar, the managers of the upcoming .biz registry, to manage the .us registry today. NeuStar has made a press release and there's an AP article over at Excite about it. Finally a country code that I'll register in." This has been brewing for a long time, and has been criticized as a giveaway.

Comments

Excite article...

[CmdrTroll]

The excite link was slashdotted but here is a summary of what it said:

• The registry will go on-line on December 15th, 2001
• Neustar will be partially subsidized by the US government, and will charge users $5/domain/year for .us domains
• Neustar will be selling x.509 certificates (similar to what Verisign does) for .us domains for $75/domain/year. They have a deal with Thawte that allows them to use the Thawte certificates in most browsers today.
• Pre-registration starts November 30th, 2001, at www.neustar.us

-CT

An International Internet

[Embedded Geek]

So, is this (the use of .US domains) going to be a step towards a more international Internet, even a baby step?

I know that people (esp in the mainstream press) marvel at how global the Internet is, but the fact is that it is inherently biased towards people in the US. Personally, unless I have reason to think otherwise (e.g. oxford.edu, moscowballet.org, airfrance.com, etc) I (incorrectly) tend to assume that a domain is on my side of the pond (or Pacific, or Canadian or Mexican border). It strikes me as unfair that a business running in the UK realistcally has to grab both .co.uk and .com domains to be sure that they reach their (UK) customers while I could simply buy eds-taco-palace.com and everyone knows it's in the States.

On the gripping hand... if we are entering an era of U.S. hedgmony, perhaps this skewed view is appropriate. After all, if the Romans had the Internet, would they have confided themselves to a ".rmn" country code?

PS - Random thought - imagine IP addresses in Rome: ccv.xcv.xxx.ii. But then they'd have had to cross the Atlantic and conquer the Aztecs to get zero and make it work...