Ask HN: Is it ok to use .org domain for commercial startup?

3 points by jiten_bansal 9 years ago | 3 comments

I want to use a .org domain for my startup (I will put some ads and premium services). Is there any legal issue? Or any other aspects that I should consider.

patio11 9 years ago |

There is absolutely no legal issue. The big three (org|net|com) are entirely advisory in nature [1]; the vast majority of customers couldn't tell you what they're supposed to advise. Google has historically used "presumed difficulty of getting this domain name" as a quality heuristic; this advantages exact-match domains on the big three (which are treated identically) and causes relative disadvantage for e.g. .biz.

Many folks on the VC-funded trajectory would tell you that there are brandability issues which would counsel you starting on, instead, getBETTERNAME.com or BETTERNAMEapp.com or something and tradition to BETTERNAME.com at any price once you have the ability to do so.

I built a company on a .org and ran it to sale, because the .com would have cost $30k and the .org cost $8.95. I can think of no difference it made over the lifetime of the business; my daughter's college fund, on the other hand, has a very clear view of the delta between the two.

[1] n.b. not true of all TLDs; .gov, .edu, and many of the geography-specific ones have various requirements to be able to use them

jiten_bansal 9 years ago | |

Thanks @patio11, Can you please give me some domain names (.org) which is making money

informatimago 9 years ago |

Nonetheless, .org is for not-for-profit associations, while .com is for-profit corporations. .net is for networks, and .biz for businesses.

A lot of startups use .io, but unless they're located in or are addressing the British Indian Ocean Territory, they should not.

I choose my "providers" taking into account the tld classification. For example, my open source free software projects are hosted on framagit.ORG, not on github.COM. (Well, ok, since people are dumb and they all go to github, I also have clones there, but I expect the commercial github entity to shutdown that service and erase them at any time for any reason their shareholders may have).