New Domain Name . US

Billed as "America's Internet Address", .US domain names are now being marketed as a way to establish a uniquely American identity. Previously, these domain names were only available in a third-level domain name format (e.g., ). Now, for the first time, .US registrations are being made available at the second level, like the familiar .com, .net and .org names (e.g., ).

The sunrise registration period for .US domain names is scheduled to begin March 4. During this period, owners of trademark registrations and applications filed before July 27, 2001 on the Principal Register of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will be given priority in registering .US domain names. Live registration is scheduled to follow on April 24, 2002.

Restricted Nature of TLD

.US domain names are restricted to U.S. citizens, residents and businesses and foreign entities that have a bona fide presence in the U.S. There are no restrictions on use of .US domain names.

Registration Process

.US domain names will be administered by NeuStar, but you may apply to register a .US domain name through several select registrars. So far, at least 29 registrars have been chosen to process .US registrations.

The sunrise registration period will run from March 4 through April 9. To qualify for a sunrise registration, the applied for domain name must be identical to the word elements of the applicant's trademark or service mark as it appears in the corresponding application or registration. Special characters (e.g., *, &, @ or punctuation marks) must be left out or replaced by hyphens. For example, MP3.com can become MP3com or MP3-com. Barnes & Noble can be registered as Barnesnoble or Barnes-noble. In the case of conflicting sunrise applications, domain names will be awarded through a random selection process. Sunrise domain names will be registered for terms of at least 5 years.

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