Non-profit group web page - what domain name?

I'm in charge of the web page for a local non-profit group. I'm just a newbie with web pages, so please bear with me.

I've been hosting the web page at a commercial ISP, so the page address is http://xxx.ispname.com/groupname/

I've decided to do it the real way and get a domain name for our non-profit group. I find a place (http://www.pair.com) that might be able to host it for less than $10 a month (I still need to look in to the details.)

For getting a domain name, I could register a ".org" domain, which costs $70 + $30 a year or something like that. But I found some information on a web page that seemed to indicate that if I had a ".us" domain name, that's free?
e.g. if my group is located in Irvine, California, then I would get a domain name ending in ".irvine.ca.us" that would cost me nothing.

Does anyone have the straight dope on this? Most domain name registration sites I go to mention ".com", ".net", ".org" domain names and nothing else.

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Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

[Sassy]

Please check the following. They are in charge of overseeing domain registrations.
www.internic.net is presently the only sevice that handles the operation. Other services will be added later this month.

When you go to Internic, follow the link to Network Solutions.
http://www.networksolutions.com/

Our experience was $35.00 a year, two years paid in advance. This is for registration. Domain hosting is a seperate issue, and prices vary. Some hosting services charge an additional charge to sign you uo for a domain name, but it's easy enough to do for yourself.

I guess my question was specifically for ".us" domain names. Does anyone understand exactly who is in charge of assigning those?

I found a site .US name registration that will do it for you, but they charge a fee (which by the way is $20 set-up and $25 a year, so it's cheaper than a .com, .org or .net name.)
However, in the list of localities for which they have administrative rights, I don't see Irvine, California, USA.

a) Can I get a groupname.irvine.ca.us domain name without going through an intermediary (so then it would be freee?)

b) Who would I talk to to do that?

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Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

I found the answer at [url=http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/usdnr/]US Domain Registration Services[url]

Short answer: the branches of the top-level US domain can be delegated to pretty much anybody. That anybody would be the person in charge of assigning lower-level domain names. The delegations usually occur at the locality level or below, e.g.
irvine.ca.us - Irvine, California
lib.mn.us - Libraries in Minnesota
k12.tx.us - Grade schools in Texas

To be a delegate for a domain, one must "be a knowledgeable and competent technical contact, familiar with the Internet Domain Name System.
Organizations requesting delegations must provide at least two independent (robust and reliable) DNS name servers in physically separate locations on the
Internet." In addition, "it is assumed by the US Domain Administrator that every applicant for the delegation (or redelegation)
of a locality name has the written agreement of the legitimate government for that locality for the applicant to manage the domain name of that locality."

A delegate can only register up to 50 localities in one state, 500 localities total. The US domain administator does not charge for delegation. The delegate, however, can charge whatever they want for registering. According to the web page, most managers of delegated branches do not charge for registering a domain name.

The company I mentioned in my previous posting (Nametamer) does charge for registering domain names. They are not a delegate for irvine.ca.us, though they have a "request page" if you want to ask them to become a delegate for a particular locality. I don't know that I want to ask them to become the delegate for irvine.ca.us, though, since they charge $45 (for the first year). I wish I knew someone satisfying the conditions above that could become the delegate for irvine.ca.us, and give me a domain name for free! Any takers?

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Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

and, of course, the link above was supposed to be
US Domain Registration Services

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Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

[handy]

www.register.com lets you search for names or sign for them. They park them for you, save them for you, in other words, for nothing except the registration, $70 for two years.

[putrid]

If all you're looking for is your organization's name before the first slash but don't mind how long that first section is (which is how I interpret your acceptance of having to include .irvine.ca.us/ instead of .org/) you can switch to one of the free services and get something no longer. At tripod, you could sign up as non-profit and end up with an address of http://non-profit.tripod.com/. [I'm sorry if that turns out to be a real address.] If you sign up as www.non-profit your URL will be www.non-profit.tripod.com/. Yes, I tried the www. bit and it works. It will look like you're paying $100 a year but you ain't paying nothing. Of course you've got that tripod in there but I don't see that as so bad myself. There are other services which allow that sort of thing, too, though I can't name the others offhand which don't stick you after the first slash.

[handy]

Try this. www.webjump.com, sign up for the new name. Register it & they give you a 25 meg web space for free with your name. Cost $70 for two years [everyone pays this, its the big internet registration for new names charge]. only thing is ads....still, fun. you get cgi access too.

[Arnold Winkelried]

Thank you, handy and putrid.

This non-profit organization (human rights group Amnesty International) is very sensitive about the appearance of receiving corporate sponsorship, so I am trying to have a site without advertisements.

All the "free" web site hosts that I have seen post advertisements on your page.

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J'ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Stendhal

[putrid]

Ok, you've got me there. Tripod and some of the other ad-supported sites will host businesses and not stick ads on those pages but then they charge. I don't suppose that's any better than the deal you already mentioned.

[Kat]

Crosswinds doesn't put ads on the pages, but I don't know their policy on business or non-profit pages or if you can get the URL shortened. I could look it up, but I'm lazy today.