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poll Dot US vs Dot USA, Will It Actually Happen?

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Which domain extension do you prefer?

  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.
  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

I saw a few comments a little while ago on a couple of popular domain blogs (DomainInvesting and DomainNameWire) and over the years I've seen some discussion about .usa (dotUSA) and how it will destroy .us (dotUS) or even replace it. Now, I am not one to shut down new ideas or naysay someone for having lofty goals but, I just cannot imagine .usa rewriting the rules on ccTLDs being more than 2 characters long and then marketing the extension up against .us which has millions of registered domains. I actually like both extensions and will probably register or invest in some .usa domains should it become a reality. Does anyone think .us will tank and .usa will win over the majority of businesses and speculators?
 
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As far as I know country related gtld are off the table when it comes to new extensions. There would also be many objections from various countries if this was proposed. I don't see it happening.

Brad
 
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Interesting. Wonder what their definition of "territory" is, which is not clear within the faq. They've allowed the .Irish gTLD, which covers Ireland. And then there's the .Berlin and .Quebec gTLDs, which while not countries would be considered a territory.

Suppose it would have to be the actual country name that's not allowed, but its nationality descriptor: .American might be possible, whereas .America would be not.
 
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.us is the official extension
 
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On the domainer's perspective I would prefer .us over .usa. What I am waiting to see is how the .usa pricing model works. If they declare all common keywords as "registry premium" leaving hardly any place for domainers to invest, then I will be the least interested.
 
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I wonder if there might be a plan for New ccTLDs kind of like New gTLDs to get around the policy or another type of TLD? Ikhub and DomainNameBroker I agree with you, .us is a preference of mine too. I also agree if .usa becomes a reality and decides to do what many of the New gTLDs which prices premium ones out of the market, then I will most likely stay away.
 
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From an overseas point of view I've always thought .US reads too much like us (as in the two of 'us) even more so with all the Ngtlds

USA would certainly get far better overseas recognition but, then again for a cctld I doubt that's ever the target market except for travel and tourism and a few other niches
 
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Interesting. Wonder what their definition of "territory" is, which is not clear within the faq. They've allowed the .Irish gTLD, which covers Ireland. And then there's the .Berlin and .Quebec gTLDs, which while not countries would be considered a territory.
The .IRISH gTLD started out as being for the Irish Diaspora (Irish emigrants and people with Irish ancestry) as well as Ireland. The main target markets were the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. The problem was that the registry seems to have underestimated the demand and Donuts took over the NGT. It is still dominated by Irish hosters and most of the registrations would probably be Irish. It is around 3K registrations. The main TLD in Ireland is the .IE ccTLD and it has around 273K registrations.

The .BERLIN and .QUEBEC are geographic gTLDs and they both had to have the permission of the local goverment/council before proceeding with the application.

Suppose it would have to be the actual country name that's not allowed, but its nationality descriptor: .American might be possible, whereas .America would be not.
The USA is the United States of America and trying to assign this as a NGT would cause massive problems for ICANN.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Should have been "underestimated the marketing costs". Basically a lot of the new gTLD registries expected the demand for their NGTs to be tthere and that the main registrars would carry them. I think that the .IRISH was not initially available on Godaddy and that's a big problem for any new TLD hoping to get registrations in the US market.

AMERICAN as a string might have other problems because even though it technically targets the people of a continent, it is difficult to say whether it applies to North America, Central America or South Amercia. There are also some brand NGTs (American Express, American Family) that may have objections.

Regards...jmcc
 
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Should have been "underestimated the marketing costs". Basically a lot of the new gTLD registries expected the demand for their NGTs to be tthere and that the main registrars would carry them. I think that the .IRISH was not initially available on Godaddy and that's a big problem for any new TLD hoping to get registrations in the US market.

AMERICAN as a string might have other problems because even though it technically targets the people of a continent, it is difficult to say whether it applies to North America, Central America or South Amercia. There are also some brand NGTs (American Express, American Family) that may have objections.

Regards...jmcc
Was wondering about that.. at 3k registrations viewed as "overestimated" :)

Always going to be objections, but I've never heard anyone outside of the States being known as an American. As per brands, first thing that came to mind with Irish is the Fighting Irish, the Notre Dame football team. There's nothing left that doesn't have some sort of brand associated with it anymore.
 
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Was wondering about that.. at 3k registrations viewed as "overestimated" :)

Always going to be objections, but I've never heard anyone outside of the States being known as an American. As per brands, first thing that came to mind with Irish is the Fighting Irish, the Notre Dame football team. There's nothing left that doesn't have some sort of brand associated with it anymore.
Yep. :) The problem with brands as gTLDs is that the reasons for setting up brand new gTLDs (Domain Tasting and rights infringements) are not as strong as they were when new gTLDs were first proposed. Most of the terminated NGTs have been brand gTLDs. There's very little activity in those NGTs and most of them are NICO (NIC Only) zonefiles. A few brand NGTs are in use though.

Regards...jmcc
 
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