TLDsWeb site tags: Top Level Domain (TLD) Names
The remote locations accessed on the web have top-level domain names classifying the category of the owner. The giving out of owner names is assigned to groups that have the authority for a given tag:
- .arpa – Advanced research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense, the start of it all – for technical infrastructure documents
- .mil – the US military – the initial user
- .edu – originally managed by the National Science Foundation, when the Internet became available for free to all U.S educational institutions
- .com – a special corporation: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers'(ICANN) set up to help manage the internet when commercial usage was allowed.
- .net – for intermediate network services providers
- .gov – for U.S. governmental agencies
- .org – for non-profit organizations
- .biz - for (small? businesses)
- .cc - two-letter codes for each country (and in the US for each state), assigned via some governmentally delegated agency.
More TLDs, often to offload .com, are coming: .info, .name, .pro, .aero, .museum, .coop. Under debate are xxx for `legitimate’ porn providers; .kids for material approved for children, etc. The demarcation lines, as .net versus ,com versus .biz are not always clear. Because of its original ubiquity. manu busienesses prefer .co, even though most memorable names have been assigned.
There are companies that have obtained potentially desirable .com names, and are now marketing them.
There have been legal fights about domain names that imply legitimate ownership, but send unaware users to a fake site. In general those have been setlled in favor of corporate owners of well-known and trade-marked brandnames.
For more information on TLDs and fights about them. A current argument is who gets .eu for Europe.
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