Champagne Bureau uses .us domain for Champagne petition call-to-action.
An ad on the back of this week’s The New Yorker includes an interesting use of a .us domain name: Champagne.us.
The ad is a call to action to sign a petition asking congress to crack down on companies labeling sparkling wine as “Champagne” when it isn’t from the Champagne region of France. There’s a legal loophole that allows American U.S. sparkling wine producers to label their wines as “champagne” under a grandfathering scheme to a 2006 law.
I enjoy a nice glass of champagne as much as the next guy, but I find the use of .us here a bit ironic. After all, if true champagne only comes from Champagne, France, then what is Champagne.us? To be fair, the ad was placed by U.S.-based Champagne Bureau, a Washington D.C. lobbying group.
DomainersChoice.com says
They also call Budweiser “beer”, so what’s the problem 😉
domain guy says
the reason for the .us suffix is because they were talking/communicating with a us audience. another example would be volvo.us
Andrew Allemann says
@ domain guy – true. Unfortunately, Volvo stopped using the .us domain (it now forwards to .com)
M. Menius says
The website is very well done, attractive. Agree with Andrew the use of a .us seems a little odd given the nature of their fight. On other hand, domain guy has a point in that they are directing this message to a U.S. audience.
LS Morgan says
.us is grotesquely undervalued. It’s best to view that extension based on what it has going for it, rather than looking in the rear-view mirror at what it has or hasn’t done in relation to it’s overall potential.
The .us ship will eventually sail (it’s starting already) and when it does, you’re either amongst those who got in before everyone else, or those who didn’t.
Allen T. says
I disagree with you all regarding .us. Americans are one of the exceptions with respect to country codes; they like .com so get used to it. The .us suffix is trash.
By the way, I am not one of those who own a lot of .com domains, so I am approaching this from a non-biased point of view.