Internet: Registrar Offers '.la' Web Address

DMNews ^ | June 09, 2003 | Mickey Alam Khan

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Registrar Offers '.la' Web Address

June 09, 2003 By: Mickey Alam Khan Senior Editor mickey@dmnews.com

Los Angeles today officially becomes the world's first city to have its own Internet domain.

Approved by the Internet Corporation for Assignment Names and Numbers, the ".la" domain offers the same functionality as .com. It is available to Los Angeles businesses and residents for $50 a year per registered name with the .la suffix.

In the month since its soft launch, nearly 10,000 names with the .la address have been pre-registered. Registrants include brands like Yahoo's yahoo.la, Rolex's rolex.la, Madonna's Madonna.la and Arnold Schwarzenegger's arnie.la.

LA Names Corp., Guernsey, UK, is the operator of .la, working with Dublin, Ireland-based domain name registrar Afilias Ltd. on the infrastructure and technology. DreamHost, a Los Angeles-based ICANN-approved registrar, will operate www.la to promote sales of .la.

LA Names struck a deal with LANIC, a department of the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic in Southeast Asia. Laos originally was assigned the name by ICANN.

The operator expects 1 million .la addresses to be registered over the next few years.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Hmmm?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[DensaMensa]

2 or 3 years ago this might have been a big hit. Today I don't think it will do nearly as well.

[mhking]

Just damn.

[thoughtomator]

Quick! Register falalalalalalala.la before the Christmas season!

[SamAdams76]

This is getting out of hand. Next thing you know, they are going to establish a .bos domain for Boston. This enrages me to no end. Now I'm going to have to remember to go to http://www.bostonherald.bos when I want to see the Boston Herald. Why can't they just be happy with .com? What a nightmare. So much for getting a good night's sleep tonight.

[sourcery]

So now there will be a land.la.la in cyberspace?

[DensaMensa]

}they are going to establish a .bos domain for Boston.

That means they will maybe have to cut a deal with BOSNIA (for .bos?) for the rights. {ggg}.

[DensaMensa]

}Quick! Register falalalalalalala.la before the Christmas season!

That's clever!

[steveo]

.la domain is assigned to Laos. Nothing new here.

[Chemist_Geek]

Right. As another example, .tv has been assigned to Tuvalu for a long time. It's just getting a server there with connectivity...

[Billthedrill]

Urrrgh - it's a matter of terminology, but us geeks like precision here - anybody with a name server can have their own "domain." This is a "root domain," if in fact it does end up going down this way.

[New Horizon]

$10 says there's sure to be an oola.la porn site coming soon.

[newgeezer]

The upside is that, for some of us, any site sporting the ".la" suffix will be effectively screaming "AVOID ME."

[supercat]

Right. As another example, .tv has been assigned to Tuvalu for a long time. It's just getting a server there with connectivity...

Actually, if you go to www.tv you can have your web site hosted anywhere and have it appear in the .tv TLD. Not sure why one would want to spend $50/year to do that, though, when other TLD's are cheaper. BTW, when I first heard the ads for the .tv domain, I checked to see if sex.tv was available; it was. I wonder how much it could have sold for if I'd grabbed it for $35?

[lonewacko_dot_com]

Please don't avoid the following, as I am their new owner:

inside.la
insider.la
blog.la
active.la
meet.la
living.la
relocate.la
run.la

Or, do you think I just wasted $450?

[Tunehead54]

So now there will be a land.la.la in cyberspace?

---

No silly! It'll be LaLaLand.la!

;-)