“CISCO” is a well-known global technology company best known for its networking hardware and software. However, within the context of the internet and the system of global network identity categorization, it is important to point the fact that CISCO is not a top-level domain (TLD).
A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of a domain name. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) oversees the allocation and functioning of TLDs. The most commonly used and recognized top-level domains include .com (commercial), .org (organization), .net (network), .gov (U.S. government), .edu (education), .mil (U.S. military), and country-specific codes like .uk or .ca (Wikipedia, 2021).
As per ICANN, there are more than a thousand Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) and over 250 country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLD). Each of these TLDs serve unique purposes and are intended for different entities. Some gTLDs like .ad, .as, .bz, .cc, .cd, .dj,.tv, .ws, .eu, etc. are marketed commercially, despite being ccTLDs (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, 2021).
For example, ‘.edu’ is reserved for educational institutions, ‘.gov’ for the United States Government, ‘.mil’ for the United States Military, ‘.org’ typically for non-profit organizations, ‘.com’ usually for commercial entities, and so on (Mozilla Developer Network, 2021). Country-specific TLDs could be ‘.cn’ for China, ‘.in’ for India, ‘.uk’ for United Kingdom, etc.
As for the term “CISCO”, it does not fall under the existing list of ICANN approved TLDs. ICANN maintains an exhaustive list of approved TLDs and as of now, there is no TLD called “.cisco” (ICANN, 2021). The name “CISCO”, however, may be used as a Second-Level Domain. For instance, in ‘www.cisco.com’, ‘cisco’ is a Second-Level Domain, ‘www’ is a Third-Level Domain or subdomain, and ‘.com’ is the TLD.
In conclusion, whilst CISCO is a recognizable name in the world of global technology, it does not currently exist as a TLD in the internet domain name system.
Sources:
1. “List of Internet top-level domains.” Wikipedia, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
2. “New gTLDs Program.” Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, 2021. https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/
3. “Domain names – concepts and entities.” Mozilla Developer Network, 2021. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMStringList
4. “TLDs.” Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, 2021. https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
