Anyone planning on buying one? Is it true that you have to pay for a minimum of five years? On my registrar's site, they're pre-registering them for $18/year with a minimum of five years :eek: If that's the price, I'm going to be patriotic the old-fashioned way, by voting and doing jury duty.

The rumor is .us domains will be available at about the same cost structure as the gTLD domains (.com, .net, .org), but we have not seen any wholesale pricing yet.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no 5 year minumum registration - however it would not surprise me if someone is taking 5 year pre-registrations. Everyone has their own business model when it comes to new domain registrations.

There is a requirement that you be US based in order to buy a .us domain. You must in fact certify that you have a "bona fide presence in the United States."

Sunrise registration begins March 4, 2002 and ends April 9, 2002. The registry goes live April 24, 2002. The Sunrise period is exclusive to owners of existing or pending U.S. trademarks prior to the opening of public first-come, first-served registrations in April.

-t

The five year minimum applies only to those domains registered in the sunrise period. Meaning only US trademark holders who register during the sunrise phase will be required to register for 5 years. As thewitt stated, the public registrations are expected to follow the same structuring as the cno.

-Dan