I had a brief battle with SouthTech Academy Foundation of Alpharetta,
Georgia (southern-domains.com) as they tried to take control the "livonia.mi.us"
domain.
I first registered smerdon.livonia.mi.us in 1995 when I moved into the
city. In 1997, USC ISI, the administrators
of the US domain, were being overwhelmed with the growth of the Internet.
So the ISI started delegating the "<locality>.<state>.us" domains
to companies.
In May of 1997, SouthTech Academy Foundation grabbed "livonia.mi.us"
and attempted to start billing me for the domain name. The US domain
policy required one year notice before I could be charged for the domain
name. But SouthTech Academy Foundation sent me bills for the years
of 1996 and 1997, and also disabled my domain until I paid. That
made it easy to convince the ISI to revoke the "livonia.mi.us" domain from
them in June of 1997.
That happened just in time too. Only US domains delegated after
July 1, 1997 required the approval of the local government. For domains
delegated to companies before this date, the local government had no control
over who administered their local domain.
So if SouthTech Academy Foundation was able to hold on to the "livonia.mi.us"
domain, the City of Livonia, the residents, and the businesses in Livonia
would have had to pay yearly to use the "livonia.mi.us" domain. Thanks
to SouthTech Academy Foundation's arrogance, the "livonia.mi.us" is currently
free for anyone to use.
The domain can still be delegated though. But at least now any
delegation of "livonia.mi.us" must be approved by the city government.
For more information about the US domain, see the US
Domain Overview at http://www.nic.us/