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UK Parliament Domain Without Registrar

asobala writes "According to this story at The Register, the UK parliament is using the domain www.parliament.uk. It's a top-level domain because it was registered before August 1996, before Nominet handled .uk domains. But since there is no registrar, they can't prove that they own it."

2 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Time to think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a time to think why USA doesn't use .us and com.us, org.us, ac.us, gov.us more often.

    This is 2003. It's not 1988 when USA had 90% of the inet.

    Is it a flame bait? Or is a bait to all sane people the fact that I stress?

    1. Re:Time to think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its simple: The US invented it, lock, stock and barrel. Well, not exactly. Al Gore did. But, he is an American.

      The naming conventions in use now have been in use in the US for 20+ years. Changing existing addresses would be confusing, add little value, and would largely be an exercise in political correctness. Anyone is largely free to use the existing tlds if they want to register. The country domains have been popular as a means of differentiating a domain, and associating it with a place, not necessarily because they have to. There are .us addresses in use, but it is mainly local governments and schools. (I will also add that it used to be tied to an inconvenient geographic naming convention.)

      You could treat our use of the current naming conventions as a minor tribute for funding and developing the internet. Or, if it makes you feel any better, you can view it as implied that .gov, .mil, .com, .org, .net, .etc, ;) are .us addresses. Or, we're just keeping .gov warm until the One World Government demands it.

      Of course, I suppose that the day will come when America will be bashed for internet address imperialism. Our unbounded use of domain names outside of .us will be viewed as an act of aggression and yet another reason to hate us. Demands will come that we retreat back inside the borders of .us.

      Ah, well, ... if the world doesn't like it, I guess we could just take our internet and go home.

      Of course that would lead to howls about American pr0n embargos, and threats of trade sanctions until we reopen the internet pr0n pipes. Of course, there will be world-wide joy AND rage over both actions. Violence will ensue. Counter-violence will follow the violence.

      Sigh. I guess we can't win.

      The only reasonably safe course of action is to not change anything.