It used to be that only Japanese corporations could register a .co.jp while anyone else anywhere could register for a .jp. So I had several .jp domains registered through Gandi.net.
replyThe issue is that .jp registered outside of a few Japanese registrars are legally not allowed to offer Whois privacy.
The .us domain should’ve been universally useful for state and municipal governments, but most of those began registering directly under .gov, and not even in an orderly hierarchy under .st.gov
replyBut that was simply the easiest way to market your website as a trusted government entity. And now nobody has ever heard of .us domains in active use.
.us was primarily a hierarchy structure which in practice made confusing and hard to remember domain names, whereas .gov addresses hand out single domains which are generally easy to remember.
replySchools use it!
replyBased on my small sample of schools, all of the ones that were using locality based names under ca.us have migrated elsewhere, including to 2nd level domains under .us.
reply> Except nobody uses the .us tld
replyThis is a bug, not a feature.