
Ask HN: Is it ok to use .org domain for commercial startup? - jiten_bansal
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.
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patio11
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

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

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informatimago
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).

