Originally, it was suggested that .COM be used primarily for commercial businesses,
.NET for network related organizations and .ORG for nonprofit groups.
Network Solutions (NSI) originally tried to follow these guidelines as closely as possible. This required manual processing of all
requests to identify the type of organization requesting each name. This worked fine when the registration
request volume was small, but it became an operational and customer service problem as requests began to
rapidly increase. This first happened in the .COM TLD and later in the .NET
and .ORG TLDs.
The manual process not only resulted in slow customer service, but also created several other problems.
Registrants, who were dishonest in describing their organization type, were rewarded with a registration
while those who honestly reported their type of organization were denied if they did not meet RFC 1591
guidelines. Also, it became increasingly difficult to clearly define what a network or nonprofit organization
was. The definition of Internet Service Provider (ISP), which was initially one category that qualified a
company for a .NET name, became increasingly blurred. And the definition of nonprofit was
complicated by the international nature of the Internet. Moreover, to implement processes to reliably validate organization
types would have been extremely costly and still not fool proof.
Consequently, in the case of .COM, .NET and
.ORG, a decision was made to rely on registrants to choose the TLD they wish. So NSI does not presently screen applications for organization type in the .COM, .NET or
.ORG TLDs. In fact, many registrants order their domain name as .COM, .NET and .ORG.
.COM, .NET and .ORG are unrestricted open domains.
.INFO is the internet's first unrestricted top level domain since .COM
Around the globe, .INFO is synonymous with information. .INFO allows you to protect your brand, expand your global presence, and drive more traffic to your site. Anyone can register a .INFO.
.BIZ is the internet's first top level domain just for businesses - the new and visionary domain that will compliment, enhance, and extend how you do business on the Internet. .BIZ is for businesses only.
.US is for individuals or companies. Any US citizen or company can register a .us domain.
More info on .us
.TV is an open domain More info on .tv domains
.CC is an open domain More info on .cc domains
.WS is an open domain More info on .ws domains
.CO.UK is for companies.
.ORG.UK is for non-profit organizations.
.ME.UK is for individuals.
More info on .uk domains
.BE More info on .be domains
.BZ More info on .bz domains
.GS More info on .gs domains
.MS More info on .ms domains
.CO.NZ More info on .nz domains
.TC More info on .tc domains
.VG More info on .vg domains
Domain Register: What is the difference between .com, .org and .net?
