FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 2, 2004

CITY GETS NEW, SHORTER WEBSITE ADDRESS

Wrapping up a three-year effort, the City and County of Honolulu announced today that it has been granted "www.honolulu.gov" for its web site and e-mail addresses.

The government-only "GOV" extension is actually for use by Federal agencies only. Several dozen cities (Seattle, Phoenix etc) have been using it under a grandfather clause, notes Courtney Harrington, director, Department of Information Technology (DIT).

            DIT first asked for an exemption from the GSA three years ago to allow it to use www.honolulu.gov instead of the current www.co.honolulu.hi.us.

"The dot-GOV name is much easier and intuitive for people to use in finding our web site." Harrington said. "As we provide more government services and information on-line, we need to make it easier for people to find us.The City asked for the exception based on Honolulu being a unique name and which could not be confused with any other city."

After being rejected three times for the exemption, the City, with the assistance of Congressman Ed Case, was granted the right to use www.honolulu.gov last month. Harrington expects the new web site address to be active at the end of next week.

 "We will be making the change over the next week but will keep the old address active so those with bookmarks in the Internet browser can still use them," he said.

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