Domain Names Half Right with “MyPlate” — USDA Gets

Government agency registers .com domain, but still brands program with a domain name it doesn’t own.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just launched a fresh campaign to replace the old food pyramid.

At first glance I thought the USDA did a great job getting relevant domain names for the campaign. Even though the campaign’s URL is prominently displayed as ChooseMyPlate.GOV, they also hand registered ChooseMyPlate.COM. That’s a smart move as a lot of people will naturally type in .com at the end.

But alas, as it turns out the actual name of the program is MyPlate, not Choose My Plate. The USDA registered MyPlate.gov and forwards it to ChooseMyPlate.gov, but it failed to get MyPlate.com. MyPlate.com is registered to Out of Egypt Ministries in California, which bought the domain name from BuyDomains many years ago.

ChooseMyPlate.com/.gov is a fine domain name, but they ought to have just branded the program Choose My Plate instead of MyPlate. It would alleviate any confusion.