Back when the Web was young, the United States government set up a clearinghouse Web site. This site was geared to tie all of the various services and institutions to one address so people wouldn’t have to search the FTC or the DoD for an IRS tax form.
It sounded good and still does. What didn’t sound good was the site’s Web address — firstgov.gov.
It was a silly name — “gov” is in the address twice, for crying out loud. I could barely remember the name tonight when I was trying to find some financial information on a company.
Thankfully, the U.S. government has eventually wised up and changed the name to a much-simpler one. All those services are now available at USA.gov.
I originally thought the address should’ve been America.gov. It seems the U.S. State Department is now using that as a news and information site.
Similarly, our friends up north have both canada.ca and gc.ca go to the same place. Apparently “GC” stands for “government of Canada” (or “gouvernement du Canada”), but who’s going to remember that?
