Is it proper (or legal) for the government to buy non-.gov TLDs to monopolize a topic?

Question

I came across a government site that had also registered the .com, .net, .org, etc of a specific topic. It seems like squatting and monopolizing a topic to me. Just seems wrong to me but I'm no lawyer.

Gov site: www.cdc.gov/healthywater/swimming/

Domains:

• healthyswimming.com (parked)
• healthyswimming.org (gov site in a frame, not a redirect)
• healthyswimming.net (gov site in a frame, not a redirect)
• healthyswimming.biz (gov site in a frame, not a redirect)
• healthyswimming.info (gov site in a frame, not a redirect)

Are there any rules against this? Will the frame effect the search rankings of the source site?

Answer 1

If private companies can do it, so can the government. There are no rules against owning all of the TLDs for a given domain. In fact big corporations do it to protect their brand.

Answer 2

A .gov (and .mil) are reserved because the government agencies that run them need to be able to deliver a certain amount of accountability. If a citizen grabs info from a .gov site, they can trust that information is the official word of the government. The government has a stronger need that a private company to deliver a specific message and have people be able to trust it as the same as they would trust a law.

While the content of a .gov site is certainly not a law, the fact is that plenty of citizens mentally treat them the same.

However in terms of marketing, reaching an audience requires the same methods from public and private enterprises. Browsers do not have a keyboard shortcut to go to a .gov site, so to effectively reach a broad audience, they have to own .com names and setup Facebook pages.