edu is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The domain was implemented in 1985 to create a domain name hierarchy for organizations with a focus on education. At the time, it was open for registration for entities from any region. Since October 29, 2001, new registrants for second-level domain names have been required to be United States-accredited institutions of higher education.

History

The domain edu was implemented in April 1985 as a generic top-level domain. Six universities were the initial registrants that month. The agreement with Educause was extended for an additional five-year period in 2006; at that time Educause was authorized to begin charging a yearly administrative fee to registrants.

The domain edu was originally intended for educational institutions anywhere in the world. However, most of the institutions that obtained edu registrations were in the United States, while non-U.S. educational institutions typically used country-level domains. In 1993, a decision attributed to Jon Postel limited new registrations in the edu domain to four-year postsecondary educational institutions. This prevented new edu registrations by community colleges and other institutions offering less than four years of postsecondary schooling.

Enforcement of the restrictions in the 1990s was not entirely effective. The webmaster for the Exploratorium, a San Francisco science museum, recalled in 2006 that the museum obtained its edu domain name at a time in the early 1990s "when there were about 600 websites and only one for a museum." The museum's Internet registrar allowed it to sidestep the then-extant domain-naming rules by using edu despite not being an academic institution and by using a name with more than 12 characters.

In 2001, the domain was restricted to U.S.-accredited postsecondary educational institutions.

Eligibility

Since October 29, 2001, only postsecondary institutions and organizations that are institutionally accredited by an agency on the United States Department of Education's list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies are eligible to apply for an domain. To be eligible, an institution must be located in the United States, legally organized in the United States, or recognized by a United States state, territorial, or federal agency.

Grandfathered uses

Domains that were already registered in edu as of October 29, 2001, were grandfathered into the system. Holders of such domain names can retain their edu domain names without regard to the current eligibility criteria.

In 2003, Educause undertook an initiative to clear the edu registry of domain names that were not accurately registered by removing names whose registrants did not respond to requests that they log into the registry and review their whois entries. Through this effort, Educause expected to eliminate a number of domains that did not appear to qualify for registration in the edu domain, such as oracle.edu, geraldine.edu, and jedi.edu.

Many countries operate .edu or .ac namespaces within their country code top-level domains that serve the same purpose as the edu top-level domain. In the United States, community colleges and technical and vocational schools also have the option of registering fourth-level domains under the .cc.state.us and .tec.state.us affinity namespaces, while elementary and secondary schools and school districts may register under the .k12.state.us namespace.

In September 2015, the .college top-level domain emerged as an option for organizations that do not meet edu's more stringent criteria, such as non-accredited institutions and institutions based outside the United States.

See also

  • .ac (second-level domain)
  • .edu (second-level domain)

References