Are their rules on when you can use .com or .org for a domain name?

For example, a local youth sports team, operating as a non-profit
organization, could use .org.  But,... do you need to meet any special
conditions to register as a .com?

Thanks.

Hi, Skip9801!

You should be able to register your sport team's name under whichever
one of the top level domains you prefer.

The documentation available from register.com says this:


   .COM, .NET and .ORG Domain Names 

   .COM - to be used for commercial and personal sites 
   .NET - recommended for companies involved in Internet
infrastructure
   .ORG - recommended for not-for-profit organizations 
   Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-") 
   Cannot begin or end with a hyphen 
   Must have less than 63* characters, not including .COM, .NET and
.ORG
   * .com, .net and .org domain names exceeding a total of 26
characters
   are supported by most web browsers. However, certain web browsers,
   email programs and other Internet related applications may not
support
   domain names over 26 characters.

( quoted from [ http://www.register.com/domain-rules.cgi?cmp=IL10671 ]
)


You may also want to look at a similar page of documentation available
from Network Solutions at [
http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/name-it/popup-extensions.jhtml ]

Note that the key word in the register.com document is "recommended."
In Network Solutions' document, the word is "most commonly." Based on
my understanding of the sites and what I personally know about
registrations, I feel that these documents are listing suggestions
rather than hard rules about domain name usage.

According to "J.P." at Network Solutions (phone # 1-888-642-9675),
".com is the most common domain used, but you can register in any one
of them."

In other words, you should be able to place the domain name of your
youth sports team in any of .org, .com, or .net without worry about
which is more appropriate.

In regards to your final question about special conditions to register
as a .com, I'll say that in brief, there is no limit on the type of
domain name you may register under .com . That being said, you may
want to carefully read the Terms of Service of whichever domain name
registrar you choose to work with. Network Solution's terms may be
found at [ http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/legal/static-service-agreement.jhtml
]. Pay special attention to the sections on "Right of Refusal,"
"Domain Name Dispute Policy," and all references to intellectual
property.

I hope this has been of assistance to you. Please ask for
clarification if needed.

Search Terms Used: "network solutions" + com + org + net + rules
[ ://www.google.com/search?as_q=com+org+net+rules&num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=network+solutions&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images]

Sites referenced:

[ http://www.register.com/domain-rules.cgi?cmp=IL10671  ]
Register.com's information about TLD rules.

[ http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/name-it/popup-extensions.jhtml
]
Network Solutions' information about TLDs.

[ http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/legal/static-service-agreement.jhtml
]
Network Solutions' Service Agreement and policies.


/ephraim

---

Request for Answer Clarification by skip9801-ga on 20 Jul 2003 21:07 PDT

If register.com says that .com is to be used for commercial and
personal web sites, doesn't that contradict the suggestion of using
.com for a nonprofit organization?

---

Clarification of Answer by ephraim-ga on 20 Jul 2003 21:16 PDT

Based on my phone conversation with the representative at Network
Solutions and quite a bit of personal experience, I'll say that
register.com's page is nothing more than a suggestion. You shouldn't
have any problem registering the name, unless it already exists or
violates some other policy listed on the site.

Here's another useful site which spells out this rule even better than
the ones I've listed above.

[ http://www.icann.org/tlds/ ]

Note the line which says the following: "...Domain names may be
registered in three of these (.com, .net, and .org) without
restriction..."

Please let me know if you need further clarification.

/ephraim

---

Request for Answer Clarification by skip9801-ga on 20 Jul 2003 21:27 PDT

Thanks.  That's probably as good an answer as I can get without
consulting with a domain name attorney.

Thanks again.

---

Clarification of Answer by ephraim-ga on 21 Jul 2003 04:05 PDT

My pleasure!

/ephraim

Pretty good.  Got back to me very quickly with original answer an a clarification.

I think a lot of the confusion surrounding this is due to the fact
that many, many years ago, you did have to meet certain criteria to
get a .net or .org domain. As far as I can remember, there was never
any restriction for .com; all you needed was a nameserver. The
restrictions on .net and .org have since been dropped.

As it is so cheap to register .com and .org domain names, you might as
well register both. Then the problem of having the .org
non-profitmaking domain name and some commercial enterprise using the
.com cannot arise

Owain

Howdy skip9801-ga,

Just a comment from a former Internet Service Provider (ISP)
owner.  It is not so much as what is allowed (as ephraim-ga
aptly points out, any rules that used to exist in regards to
.org usage are gone) but rather what you want your website
to reflect.  Generally, if you use the .org extender, people
will assume you are exactly that, a nonprofit organization.

The use of .com tends to indicate to users you are a company.
To go beyond what owain-ga points out, I would suggest, if
your budget can handle it, you get the .com, .org and .net
versions of your desired domain name.  That way you can use
the .org version of it, which I would suggest provides an
appropriate image for your site, and have your ISP point the
.com and .net versions to the web site.

This allows the usual mistake of users always using .com with
the domain name as well as protect the domain name from being
used by others in the .com or .net format to "steal" traffic
from you.

But, to emphasize what ephraim-ga has provided, there are no
special conditions or rules to be met this days for the use
of any of the extenders.

Looking Forward, denco-ga