The United States Commerce Department is looking to change the way that .us domain names are administered. That's not all that surprising, as the domain names can get rather long with www.{name}.{city}.{state}.us being the standard format. What does surprise me is that the Commerce Department is wondering why people and businesses have not flocked to register .us domain names.

There was another article titled something ridiculous like "are Americans unpatriotic?" Since other countries have their own domains and companies and people in those countries use those domains, why is America different. Indeed, many companies use other country domains (but usually that's to avoid certain American laws).

Well, the answer is obvious: the .com, .net, and .org domains are what most people consider U.S. domains, dominated by US businesses and citizens. Sure, they were meant to be international designations, but since US organizations had first crack at it (so to speak), they've gotten most of the domain names, and most of the good domain names too.

So what does that do to our cultural identity? I don't think it does anything. I'm not much of a fan of all the new top level domains being created. Pretty much .com is the only important TLD. Notice how .net is no longer restricted to bandwidth providers. Fortunately, .org is still mostly non-profit. GOV and MIL are very US centric, while EDU is still used for schools.

I have a couple of domain names registered. I don't want to register them under multiple TLDs. COM is the most natural for people and that should be sufficient. I don't particularly like the new TLDs which force companies to register under them (and once again fight cybersquatters). But as long as people have to type in URLs, COM will remain the predominant TLD.

Which brings up the fact that directory services can change this. With a good directory, you don't need to know the exact URL. It can be a bunch gobbledygook or a prized domain name, either way it doesn't matter to the user of the directory service. Of course, this would make directory services and search engines more powerful.

Search engines are getting too commercial. I don't know if Altavista still does this, but a while ago they started to return as the first hit, a link to the site that paid them the most money for that keyword. Other search engines give you targetted advertisements depending on your keywords. Google has so far resisted blatant advertisements. I think they have text advertisements, which fits in well with their minimalist interface.

Since we're on the topic of the Internet, let me bring up the subject of taxes. The US Congress I think has passed a law saying there won't be any Internet taxes for the next couple of years. State taxes don't count as long as the transaction stays within state boundaries. I'm not sure if states can tax interstate commerce, but it doesn't seem so.

Eventually though, we are going to want to tax Internet transactions. Just the fact that more and more transactions will occur on the Internet and not through normal channels means less and less revenue for states and the feds. The problem with taxing companies is that they tend to move or base themselves in places where they won't be taxed. Especially Internet companies.

I think it would be easier to tax based on the buyer's home location. It would be harder for companies to keep track of, but most people don't move just to go to a state with a lower sales tax. Sure, there are people in California that go to Oregon or Nevada if they can to shop. If they want to move to those states they are more than welcome. But it would keep a certain class of companies in the state which means more jobs and more money in the local economy.