Policy:

All new Web sites of Department of Commerce organizations shall have .gov or .fed.us as the top level domain. In addition, within one year of the adoption of this policy all existing Web sites of Department of Commerce organizations shall have .gov or .fed.us as the top level domain.

Purpose:

This policy is designed to ensure that the public can easily recognize Commerce Department Web sites as U.S. Government sites and to ensure that Commerce Web pages are indexed by the FirstGov.Gov search engine.

Exceptions:

Policy 1 level CIOs may grant exceptions to this policy. In instances where an exception is to be granted a copy of the justification shall be sent to the Department of Commerce's Chief Information Officer.

Deadline for Implementation:

February 8, 2002

Discussion:

The CIO Council anticipates that exceptions granted by Policy 1 Level CIOs will be rare and supported by a clear and compelling justification.

For more information see:

References:

• .gov Program Guidelines (September 2003)
• Final Rule - 41 CFR Part 102-173 -Federal management regulations; Internet .gov Domain (March 2003)
• RFC 1480 - The US Domain (June 1993)