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Los Angeles Gets Own TLD

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the new-york-seething-jealous dept.

DM420 writes "On June 9th, Los Angeles officially becomes the world's first city to have its own Internet domain.Great to hear since one day I hope to be an owner of my own TLD and this is a step in the right direction. ;) The registry is located at www.la and further details at DMnews.com" Looks like an Irish firm made a deal with Laos to use the .la TLD. Looks to be on the pricier side of domains, though.

13 of 477 comments (clear)

  1. Open NIC Open Source TLD's by Lord+Prox · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just a quickie to plug OpenNIC. It's nifty, like www.yournamehere.geek. Or even create your own TLD altogeather. Someone should tell LA about this. I already emailed the mayor of Long Beach (just south of LA) but she is an idiot. Talked to her a few times, then helped another canidate with his campagne aginster her. I'm just getting off topic hre aren't I. The point being I am having a tough time getting any local govt to listen to reason to open source/alternate IT/anything not sole by a big name crop.

    Drives me insane. Sorry for the rant.

    1. Re:Open NIC Open Source TLD's by Lord+Prox · · Score: 3, Informative

      And yet your personal /. link is a .net - so nifty you're trying to talk local governments into adopting it, not nifty enough to use yourself. What to make of this, I don't know.

      A valid question, with a valid answer...

      1. Starting your own TLD isn't quite like a domain. It is a significant commitment to that TLD and all the domains that might register in it. That is more work than I wanted to do for the sake of ego. In addition there is a ratifacation process before you can reg the TLD (to ensure it will be put to good use of name space and prevent TLD squatting)
      2. I have thought of reg'ing a domain in the .geek TLD... responsibilities for that are much less. (I would only have th be responsible for the hosts and running the authoritive DNS for that) 3. An entity like the City of Long Beach would have the resources and use for a full TLD, coupled to the fact that they are trying to attract tech business away from neighboring SoCal cities it would be a good choice for them (at least I think so) and it would be a big boost for OpenNIC as well.

      Mabey it would be good. Mabey not. There may be technical considerations I am not aware of or other things (non-technical) as well. It was a suggestion.

      Note: My earlier reference to the mayor O'Neil being not-so-bright was not based on this matter. Rather on several other interactions I have had with her. Including her reference to the city of Long Beach as being land locked. We have (I think) the second busiest port in california and a request for suggestions to help with the cities budget problems, to which I suggested GNU/Linux, OpenOffice etc, that fell on deaf ears. As well a few financial mini-scandals involving a retirement funds and street lights.

      At last we have the fact that supporting OpenNIC is going to irratate ICANN. I don't like tyrants, I thinking that ICANN is looking more and more like that.

  2. Not the first city after all by worst_name_ever · · Score: 5, Informative
    I wonder how they can claim that L.A. is the first city with its own TLD, when the Vatican, which is a city as well as a country, has had its own TLD for a few years now...

    Now, "First city with a TLD and drive-through breast augmentation" - that I would believe.

    --

    In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
  3. Re:couldn't agree more. by claar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Said Vellmont:
    I find it rather sad that this gets posted as news on slashdot, given that slashdot is supposed to be run by geeks. I'd expect this from my local newspaper, but CowboyNeal should know better.

    Said CowboyNeal:
    Looks like an Irish firm made a deal with Laos to use the .la TLD.

    I think it was fairly clear.. the submitter is the only one who used the word "officially", unless you count the headline -- and headlines are just attention-getters that are rarely factual (and usually fairly effective in their purpose).

    --
    I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
  4. Recently Registered by sabNetwork · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hahaha this is a great feature. Check out the type of domains that are already being taken.

    TRASH: 16
    (including porn, hair-transplant, breast/penis enlargement, lasik surgery, and other spam)
    CORPORATE: 37
    (companies such as FOX trying to reserve their trademarks under every TLD possible)
    DICTIONARY/GENERIC: 28
    (dictionary words and other obvious domain name real estate such as "1.la")
    OTHER: 137
    (names that I didn't recognize or didn't fit into these categories)

    Wow, I have too much time on my hands.

  5. Re:woah woah woah by Triumph+The+Insult+C · · Score: 3, Informative

    No. Holy See is it's own country, comprised of one city, Vatican City.

    --
    vodka, straight up, thank you!
  6. Definitely not the first city by jsse · · Score: 5, Informative

    Los Angeles officially becomes the world's first city to have its own Internet domain

    What about .hk? Hong Kong is a city of China(before that HK is a British colony city) and has its own TLD for years.

  7. .LA is a SCAM. by SlashChick · · Score: 5, Informative
    Oh, man. .LA domains. Where do I begin?

    Some background: .LA has been around for several years. Here is one of the initial announcements, dated February 2001.

    I have a client who bought one of the initial .LA domain names. He paid $150 to the then-registrar of .LA domains for 5 years of service.

    Last December, he got a notice stating that the contract between Laos (the official holder of .LA) and the domain registration company had expired. The letter said, in part, "On 11 December 2002 ICANN announced its decision to re-delegate the ccTLD .la to the Lao Government, specifically the Lao National Internet Committee (LANIC). DotLA and Sterling were not aware that this change was being contemplated by ICANN or IANA, and we were not contacted by ICANN/IANA for our comments either before or after ICANN made its decision."

    The letter goes on to explain that ICANN changed the official name servers for .LA to an as-yet-unnamed company. My client's domain name continued to work, but he knew he was borrowing time.

    Suddenly, Dreamhost (the current .LA registrar) waltzed in and paid a handsome sum of money to become the official .LA registrar. Of course, they chose not to honor my client's 5-year registration, and demanded that he pay MORE money or have his domain name cease to work.

    This has been a frustrating 6 months. My client has since registered a .biz domain, which is controlled by ICANN and not by any specific company. This means that there is no "official" registrar for .biz domains, and that there aren't going to be any disputes over who owns the TLD.

    After the $150 that has been wasted by my client for a "5-year" registration, what's to say that Dreamhost won't also get into a dispute and dump .LA completely? At that point, all current .LA domain name holders would be in the same position as my client -- forced to change their web address because the company can't get it together, and losing money in the process.

    .LA is a mess. I would not recommend registering a .LA domain until the whole mess stabilizes a bit.

    --
    Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
  8. Re:Article by sumbry · · Score: 3, Informative

    Wait wait wait, "officially"? Isn't the .la TLD still officially assigned to Laos, and they've just cut a deal with some company to promote it as a Los Angeles TLD, just like the TLDs of Western Samoa, Tuvalu and Belize are promoted as "Web Site", "Television" and "Business" respectively? Does the City of Los Angeles even know about this?

    Not only is this old news, but it's years old. This company has been registering .la TLDs with the Los Angeles spin for *years*.

  9. Re:Holy see, Batman! by Phroggy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ahh, but ICANN didn't assign .va to Vatican City, the IANA did! It's a ccTLD, not a gTLD, and was assigned before ICANN existed (ICANN was created in 1998; the .va TLD was assigned in 1995). And yes, it would have been news, in 1995.

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  10. Re:Holy see, Batman! by Cplus · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Vatican is a country. It may be in the shape of a city, but it is entirely an independant entity and the smallest in the world. It's population is under a thousand, it's official language is latin, it has it's own currency, and a radio station. Don't know why I know all of this.

    --
    "Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
  11. Re:couldn't agree more. by Another+AC · · Score: 4, Informative

    Having said that, what happens when the people of Laos decide they want to use their TLD?

    Actually, Laos reserved a bunch of .la domains for use within the country.. com.la, net.la, mil.la, gov.la, and about 140 more.

    I believe they're getting something in the range of 20% of all revenues from the domains.

    Maybe they can use the money to pay for those laonix pcs..

  12. Other city TLDs by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Informative
    If ICANN had assigned a TLD to a city, THAT would be news.

    Singapore .sg
    Monaco .mc
    Hong Kong .hk
    Macau .mo
    Gibraltar .gi
    Kuwait .kw
    Vatican .va
    Luxembourg .lu
    Saint Helena .sh

    Of these, most are indpendent city-states (or village-states), except for HK and Macau, which were European colonies and are now Chinese ones, Saint Helena, and Gibraltar, British colonies.