GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY/Domain names need standard format

Looking for the local government web site for Ferndale, Mich.? Try www.ferndale-mi.com. Users searching for information on Walker, Mich., will end up at ci.walker.mi.us. Hanover Park, Ill., can be found at www.hanoverparkillinois.org. Those addresses have one thing in common: each is the location of a city web site. However, their inconsistencies have created much confusion for people searching for city web pages. Standardizing the domain names for city and county web sites will allow any user to find any city or county web page by following a basic formula (ci.city. state.us or co.county.state.us).

Many cities and counties are not aware that there is a standard name that their local governments should use. The above address for Walker is the only one that follows the conventions set by the U.S. Domain Registry, which is administered by the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. U.S. domains are reserved for locality-based organizations. However, a quick scan of local web sites at officialcitysites.org shows that fewer than 50 percent of cities use the proper name, with the rest evenly split between dot-com and dot-org.

The U.S. domain can be used by businesses, individuals, state government agencies, schools, libraries, museums, and city and county government agencies. Differences in the addresses reflect the types of jurisdictions using them. For example, Novi, Mich., uses ci.novi. mi.us. Businesses in Novi can register as businessname.novi.mi.us. And, Oakland County, home of Novi, is properly registered as co.oakland.mi.us.

Users can register local government names at no charge at www.nic.us. Commercial and nonprofit organizations are charged $35 per year for their dot-com or dot-org domain names.

It is easy to register a domain name; in fact, the lack of difficulty has created problems for some dot-us users. Before a 1997 policy change, several private groups each snapped up as many as 500 local government domain names. When cities began developing their sites, they either had to buy the domain name from the previous registrants, pay a monthly fee to the “squatters” or find alternate addresses. ISI has since modified its policy to require a local government official to be named as administrator of the domain, allowing the city to control the domain name.

Currently, the squatters are charging cities $35 to $50 a year to “lease” domain names, but nothing prevents the squatters from increasing prices. Additionally, many domain name managers have mismanaged the sites, preventing users from accessing them. Partly to avoid the fees and partly because they prefer to own their domain names directly, many municipalities have chosen web addresses that may incorporate a dot-com or dot-org instead of dot-us.

“I can’t allow my village to be held hostage over something as important as our web site name,” says Mary Malloy-Rhee, director of public relations for Hanover Park, Ill. “If I can’t sign a long-term agreement [with the name owner], I’d rather find an appropriate dot-org domain name.”

As a result of those problems, the U.S. domain is used infrequently. But some cities and counties are calling for ISI to institute some new policies for domain name management. They reason that, if ISI were to institute an annual charge for domains and regulate the price that can be charged, the squatters might release the domains.

They also argue that ISI should strip rights from squatters when chronic mismanagement of a domain is documented. According to local governments, a web site’s success should not be affected by the incompetence of a domain manager that the city or county did not choose and cannot change.