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GCN Home > 04/29/02 web stories

Indian tribes gain special domain name suffix

By Wilson P. Dizard III, GCN Staff

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Federally recognized American Indian tribes will gain a special domain name suffix identifying them as government entities under a cooperative agreement announced by the Interior Department and the General Services Administration.

GSA grants the .gov domain name to federal agencies, and Interior, through its Bureau of Indian Affairs, handles relations with the sovereign tribes. According to the announcement on Friday, a tribe’s domain name will include a hyphen, the letters nsn—for native sovereign nation—and the .gov designation. The tribes’ sites now follow their names with .nsn.us.

For example, the Hopi tribe’s new domain name will be www.hopi-nsn.gov. It now is www.hopi.nsn.us.

Interior said the special designation for the tribes is a step toward providing information about American Indian programs and agencies, as well as transactional functions, via the Internet.

Each tribe will provide the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs with proof of the tribal government’s decision to adopt a new domain name. Tribes also can register at www.gov-registration.gov.



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