This seems a bit off the topic of this list but since it has been
brought up...  Please read RFC1480 about the current status of the .US
domain or you may lead someone astray - we did!  ;-)
 
   Our state government applied for a domain name in .GOV but the Internic
directed them to the .US domain.  All new US states are now being registered
as  "STATE.ss.US" where ss is the two-letter abbreviation.  All educational
institutions in the US except 4 year colleges and universities are being
registered in the appropriate .US domain.  This includes 2-year junior
colleges, technical schools, and K-12.  In addition, anyone in the USA
may register in the .US domain although many organizations are still
registering in other domains and there are no plans to "fold" those
under the .US domain.
 
   The RFC specifies specific lower level domains.  For example, city
government would be CITY.theirname.ss.US . There are provisions for
country-wide entities like FED.US (but I think most federal agencies
are still being put under GOV) and DNI.US ("distributed national
institute").
 
   The authors of RFC1480 include information on how the specifications
plan for delegations, duplicate name avoidance (how many Ben Franklin
schools are there?), etc.   But you really have to read the RFC because
some of the cases aren't intuitive.  They have provided lots of
examples and "cases".
 
   At this time all of the "ss.US" zones are served by ISI and the
other US domain servers.  This meant that our state government had to
get a delegation for the STATE.ND.US zone as well as 53 or so county
delegations - lots of zones.  It also means that within a state some
zones will be handles by ISI.EDU and some by others.  However, the
authors of the RFC have said that this is a temporary situation
because not all states are ready to take on their own state
delegations (for EVERYONE in that state).  The 2nd and 3rd level zones
are listed in the Internic WHOIS database but no lower.
 
   One other point that may have been mentioned here.  Some people think
that high level domains like "EDU" were set up for the USA.  That was
supposedly NOT the case but in practice most of the EDU zones are for
entities in the USA.
 
      Marty