My guess is that it’s because the US built the thing, they decided .gov was to be for US Government sites. Then when other countries joined they got their own TLDs, which they added a .gov.<tld> to for their own purposes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov (Which seems to make my guess right, .gov is operated by the US Government)

That was introduced in 1985, almost 40 years ago.

For how many decades is this going to be a reasonable argument?

In 100 years, will it still be reasonable for the USA to say "we built the thing, so it is appropriate for us to continue to be the default country in domain names. The rest of you must use your ccTLDs, but we remain special."

In 200 years?

The only non-pathetic option is for the United States to transition to using its .us ccTLD for governmental and military domains in particular, with .edu and probably some others not far behind. The only question is how gradual the process is, and when it starts.

Country calling codes date from the 60s and yet the US (and Canada?) are still +1.

The real answer is that it’s way too much work to change now, so it will probably continue indefinitely unless a new system supplants the current internet.

That's silly; registering new domain names and putting redirects in place is much simpler than changing a freakin' country code.

> That's silly; registering new domain names and putting redirects in place is much simpler than changing a freakin' country code.

Cool, here's a $50,000 firm fixed contract for you to go fix all the hardcoded .gov references in every single federal website, knowing how many of them will fail to handle redirects gracefully.

Why is the change needed?

Here’s the reasonable argument: US citizens are now used to .gov domain names being solely used by US government entities. They won’t change it, nor should they, as forcing domain name changes will simply add confusion for Americans.

Just because you don’t like that the US government has first mover advantage isn’t a good reason to change this.

I don't really think this is much of an issue. It's not like the change would happen immediately. Each .gov website is likely run by different agencies, so they wouldn't end up switching all at the same time.

It's a pretty simple matter to register a corresponding .gov.us domain for each existing .gov domain. Then each .gov domain owner would have to configure their web server properly, and can phase in a redirect from the old .gov to the new .gov.us.

Prior to this happening, the .gov site could have a big banner across the top of the page informing visitors of the change. This could remain for as long as seems reasonable before changing, even multiple years.

> Just because you don’t like that the US government has first mover advantage isn’t a good reason to change this.

As an American, I think the current setup with .gov (and .mil) is super weird. The fact that there are so many US government websites that are under .com, .org, and even .us, is weird too. The US shouldn't hold any kind of privileged place when it comes to TLDs; it's clearer for everyone concerned -- including Americans -- to put all these under .gov.us.

Sunsetting a TLD to prove a point sounds really silly.

MS still hasn't gotten all of their users to transition to outlook.com in order to be rid of hotmail.com, which they bought in 1997.

Do you have the US Government doing it quicker? The only way it ever occurs is if they effectively CNAME .gov to .gov.us to run them both side-by-side.

Adding a new domain and redirecting every old URL is fine, though they may not be prepared to set that up. But that old domain and those old URLs need to redirect forever, because there’s never a day when you can be certain that every old hyperlink on the web and every bookmark anyone ever saved has been updated. Otherwise you are intentionally causing link rot.

https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

The redirects are fine but probably take effort depending on how those backends work. They also need to be permanent to avoid link rot.

Edit: I’ve been in stacks of microservices for a while, and it just occurred to me that I’m not sure how cookies can be migrated between domains.

Until a country decides to use its own dns root. Then another. Then another.

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines.

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Why do you think other government/country want to use an English abbreviation for their government entities ? Even for Latin language that use a similar word "gouv" (french), "gob" (spanish) or "guv" (romanian) would be more natural.

Various government departments of those countries use domains under .gouv.fr, .gob.es, .gov.ro respectively. The argument is that fairness and clarity would suggest that the US likewise use .gov.us or some other convention of their choice under .us.

Right, I assumed it was the same principle by which UK, having issued the first postage stamps, is the only country that doesn't say the country name on the stamp.

Isn't it just that .gov is the US one? Like .com vs. .co.uk (though since it's not actually important that's blurred) or .org vs. .org.uk.

Or .edu vs. .ac.uk; .mil vs. .mod.uk.

They got there first and just spread over TLDs before consigning other nations to fit under one I suppose.

.com, .org and nearly all original TLDs are used internationally, though there are also local derivatives like co.uk. Even .edu used to be available internationally. I suppose most people have realized by now that .gov is strictly US, but it's not like that was obvious from the naming scheme alone.

I was under the impression that the US government controls / owns .gov

Yes exactly. So there's no need to use gov.us, but there isn't a 'ukgov' TLD, so gov.uk makes sense.

Yes, exactly. .gov is US-specific and controlled by the US government.

.gov is managed by the US government in the exact way you describe. There is nothing "inherently international" about it. It isn't meant for anyone outside of US government agencies.

Let's be specific though: .gov is available for any government within these United States, whether it be federal, state, local municipality, territorial, or tribal government. In fact, all major cities I just spot-checked have .gov domains. I wonder how many are clinging to <city>.<state>.us? At least as a CNAME? ...none of those which I just spot-checked.

Plenty of exceptions abound, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#Use

I remember back in the day when the highschool website & email was: school.district.k12.ca.us . Basically no one uses those because they were too long and hard to remember. My old school district doesn't use the higher level, the school doesn't use the full name. In fact, they don't even resolve in DNS anymore. Some districts now have the schools under their new domain, some schools do their own thing.

Huh, same! I remember the changeover happened sometime around fifth grade, so 2011-12 for our district? (Strangely enough our school's wifi used WEP until 2014ish. I remember the password was obviously contrived to the right length)

I never had a problem remembering such domains, because I found them logical. In fact, in 1996, I registered such a domain that was <street address>.<city>.<state>.us. I figured this was the most accessible one for all four of our roommates to use, and there was no cost at the time.

Come to find out that the k12.ca.us. domain is completely defunct! There is no SOA for it, and WHOIS indicates it's inactive. k12.ny.us. seems to be in the same condition. However, there are still k12.<state>.us. domains in other parts of these USA. If you search for them, you can find websites and email addresses under that hierarchy.

There are still plenty of subdomains, for example, https://www.cnusd.k12.ca.us/

The MBTA (transit authority) in MA in the US uses .com. (MA state government seemingly still uses .ma.us as well. And town.ma.us seems pretty standard in MA at least based on my town.

What are the chances that Art Spiegelman could register a clever "ma.us" domain?

> it's under a cctld that clearly affiliated to and managed by that government.

Maybe this is my latent American nationalism showing, but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government?

I think this bit was added as an edit or maybe I just missed it:

> an inherently international .gov domain

.gov is not inherently international for all the reasons in this subthread (and probably others as well)

I don't think thats clear at all. We have three people in this thread already confused on the issue.

I think the poster wasn't talking of the US government but of knowing which government a domain is related to by just looking at it. ".gov" is not clear while ".gov.uk" is clear due to the ccTLD.

> but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government

I would say no. What makes it clear to you?

Honestly, I don't believe that anyone is truly "confused" about the source of a .gov website, especially folks who are reading HN on a weekend. They might view it as arbitrary (it's not, really) but it's certainly not a "oh man I just don't understand how this could be the case" level of confusion.

I won't go so far as to say that the internet is an American invention but it was certainly primarily American in origin. .gov has been managed by the US government since the beginning.

> What makes it clear to you?

Not the OP, but also American. For me it's clear because I've never seen a US government site on a non-.gov domain (though apparently some obscure ones exist as this submission points out), nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov.

> some obscure ones exist

The submission includes over 400 domains for the federal only list. That is more than "some obscure ones"

> nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov

How often are you going to non-US-government government sites? Being an American I could imagine you hardly if ever interact with any other government sites so maybe that could be attributed to selection bias.

I go to foreign gov sites just as frequently as US ones because I travel internationally.

> The submission includes over 400 domains for the federal only list. That is more than "some obscure ones"

The number has nothing to do with how obscure they are.

> Being an American I could imagine you hardly if ever interact with any other government sites

I have interacted with them many times. (1) to fill out various Covid-related entry forms when those were widely required, (2) to apply for visas, (3) purely out of curiosity (e.g. I’m sometimes curious what travel warnings/advisories other countries’ foreign ministries put out and how they compare with our own).

I suspect it depends on whether you know your early Internet history. The Internet was a US research and military project at first. It was US-centric for a long time. The original top level domains are all US-centric. Walmart.ca is Walmart Canada. Walmart.com is Walmart America. Similarly, .mil, .edu are for the US military and American universities. .gov fits into that scheme and if you know the rest it would follow that it's for the US gov.

All the documentation is very clear and the behavior is consistent. It’s sub optimal for countries utilizing a .gov.{country code} scheme, but it would be extremely expensive to change. Many non English speaking countries use a different abbreviation for their word for government, so it’s hard to argue that the status quo has to change to benefit “everyone.”

The us also has .mil locked up for mostly purposes.

> What makes it clear to you?

Load any name on the TLD, lol, what?

I understand the point you're arguing for, and mostly agree!, but the end-around is...weird.

Do .gov's have to be renewed every year with ICANN?

What if a dept lets theirs lapse and some squatter swoops in and takes it?

We'll start the bidding at $1B USD...

I'll pay for the domain if you find a way to buy a .gov as easily as you can buy a .com. I don't even think a regular citizen can get a .gov unless you incorporate a new city or something like that.

the gov TLD is managed by the US government. It's very rare that you renew anything with ICANN, since you're almost always going at least to the entity that manages a TLD (unless you run a TLD, then I guess there'd be an ICANN fee).

If you have a .com domain, you're renewing with VeriSign, the company that owns the com TLD.

Currently, the .gov sTLD is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

You’re confusing TLDs and domain names.

ICANN has lots of rules around TLD assignment, so squatting .gov doesn't seem possible. But some have recurring cost. Here's gTLDs:

> a fixed fee of US$6,250 per calendar quarter; (b) and a transaction fee of US$0.25. [1]

.gov is not a gTLD, I'm not sure what financial relationship exists, if any.

[1] https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...

During the government shutdown some TLS certificates expired, so depending how long it goes a domain renewal could get missed because nobody is working or the check bounces.

"turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US.

I get it, you invented the internet, but the special status you have over it is a little frustrating."

I bet America having +1 as our country code bothers you too :P

America numba 1! /S

Hate to break it to you, but Canada uses +1 as well[0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Canada

That's because the Canadians haven't accepted the fact that their provinces are just new states waiting for annexation.

That's settled, we're even.

> Why doesn't the United Kingdom have the name of the country on its stamps?

> Because the United Kingdom had the privilege of being the first country in the world to introduce postage stamps, meaning that they did not need to be identified as coming from that country, especially when used domestically.

.com and .net and .org are only "internationally available" because the registrars didn't care to restrict them (IIRC, one of them was moderately restrictive in the beginning, perhaps .org requiring an actual organization of some sort).

.mil is also US only.

The real hotness is to host on .arpa - https://blog.fhrnet.eu/2019/03/13/fun-with-arpa-domains/

The TLD .org was originally for non-profits, to distinguish them from the for-profit companies found over at the .com TLD. In the beginning, you had to prove nonprofit status to get a .org domain.

That’s no longer required, but still there was a big fight a few years ago when the .org registrar was set to be sold to a private equity firm. It’s the TLD of choice for nonprofits, as an echo of that early restriction.

This got me thinking about cookie scope, and I have a feeling that domaina.tld. and domainb.tld. is always safer than domaina.gov.tl. and domainb.gov.tld.

I might be way off here, but I think that means either domain could set a gov.tld cookie which is sent to all domains, and if one of them is reading cookies without checking scope it could be a way to send whatever to another server. Or even worse, if one of the sites is using gov.uk cookies for something sensitive, then any of the others could read it.

Does anyone know if browsers have special cookie scope considerations for things like .gov.uk and .co.uk?

Browsers use the public suffix list to determine cookie scope. So .co.uk domains are just as isolated from each other as .com domains.

You can even get your own domains added to it, typically because you allow users to host their own content on a subdomain (like github.io for github pages).

https://publicsuffix.org/

The UK doesn't put the country of origin on their postage stamps, because they invented them [1], so there were no ambiguities to lift.

That's the same reason the US is +1 country code and holds .gov

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_hist...

Also the same reason, I guess, English-speaking countries have 0 and 1 as country codes in ISBN numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISBN_registration_grou...

There was an interesting use case for the early zero language code. It allowed the checksum to remain intact when switching from early SBN to ISBN, all you had to do was prefix with zero. It isn't quite so simple today, if you find an old British book you can't simply tack a zero on the front.

It is mentioned in the Wikipedia link, but buried a little. I realise ISBN history is the epitome of super-nerdy, but the evolution path from $just_some_retailer through to the Bookland "country" is really quite interesting from an interoperability perspective.

Note that .gov predates .uk. .gov was made in 1984, and .uk was issued in 1985.

And I think that my company issued the first .gov.uk, which would have been about a decade later...

Even in France most government websites use ".gouv.fr" (gouv is short for gouvernement, aka government).

Even if it's not exactly ".gov" they still mimicked it.

Much like the gouv.qc.ca suffix.

> I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain,

There's .INT if you have a use for one.

> turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US.

This goes back to when the DNS was designed in the late 70s. Things were different back then (remember the big-endian british addresses, gb.corp.foo IIRC).

And I see you haven't learnt about .MIL yet either...

Fun fact: I briefly had a .gov domain in the early 90s through internic until they figured out I was not a government agency

.mil too

>>I get it, you invented the internet, but the special status you have over it is a little frustrating.

america music intensifies

Interestingly, .edu is mostly only for US universities, but there are a bunch of exceptions. Basically, there used to be several "generic TLDs"[1] in addition to the "country code TLDs" (of which ".su" for Soviet Union still exists), but they mostly got converted into sponsored TLDs.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_top-level_domain