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The University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) Tuesday ceased administration of the .us domain, a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) similar to those used by Canada (.ca), Germany (.de), Norway (.no) and other countries. VeriSign Global Registry will temporarily assume administration of the domain until a permanent administrator is selected.

VeriSign will administer the domain with no change in policies through the existing system of delegated administrators across the country. The U.S. Department of Commerce (USC) will ultimately decide on a permanent administrator for the domain and has set up a Web site for comments on the management and administration of the domain.

"USC and ISI have been responsible for the development and maintenance of the United States top-level domain since its inception," said Ron Ohlander, ISI deputy director. "ISI has provided .us registration services free of charge since the creation of the domain."

The Internet Software Consortium Survey of January 2000 found that the .us domain was the sixth largest in the Internet, following the more popular .com, .net, and .org international domains and the .jp (Japan) and .uk (United Kingdom) ccTLDs.

The structure of the .us domain is a hierarchy based on localities (e.g., jon-postel.marina-del-rey.ca.us). State and local governments, Native Sovereign Nations, K-12 districts and schools, community colleges, technical schools, museums, libraries, organizations, businesses and individuals are all eligible to register under .us.