I hadn’t realized that there was a website called gop.gov. I thought that the .gov top-level domain was for official government sites. To have one for Republicans seems to be mixing party and government. Of course, I think that parties (and particularly the major ones) are far too privileged in general, given that they are unmentioned in the Constitution.
5 thoughts on “Is This A Good Idea?”
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It (the .gov domain) used to be reserved only for Federal government sites. E.g. congress, presidential departments, or regulatory agencies. I’m not sure when this ended, but the state of California has had ca.gov for some time.
gop.gov is actually the domain for the House Republican Conference, so technically the domain doesn’t belong to the Republicans.
http://www.dotgov.gov appears to be the nic for the .gov TLD.
I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I noted a bit ago that the GOP isn’t the only one doing it. This appears to be the web page for the House Science Committee:
http://democrats.science.house.gov/
While the ‘generic’ version exists as well:
http://science.house.gov/
With identical information.
Political parties are not (should not be?) part of the government. The difference is subtle to most, I’m sure, but it is critical.
Well, I suppose it’s fair… as long as every party that, say, manages to get a single Federal representative elected gets their own site too.
That said I’d certainly prefer it not be done for any of them.
I’m of the impression that the governance of domain names is rather loose, that a lot of it is left to self-enforcement. For example why is my cable provider’s URL a .net when they are clearly a commercial operation? It seems like I’ve seen a number of cases where .org has been abused, too, although I don’t have an example in mind. So I don’t know if this is a sign of priviledge and or corruption as much as a result of ICANN’s weak enforcement. That may be changing.
http://www.icann.org
Given that Tom Hill’s examples are on House.gov, and that the House, like it or not, is organized according to party, I think a defense can be raised for them.
GOP.gov (and its counterparts for other political parties) not so much. I’d prefer these domains be reserved for official government sites only.