US government domain names covering policies on child support benefits, law enforcement accountability, and clean energy are among over a dozen deleted by the Trump administration since January 20.
The deletions, some of which seem to be linked to the overturning of former Presiden Biden’s executive orders, may give some insight into the new administration’s priorities.
Notably, childtaxcredit.gov has been deleted from the .gov zone file, based on a comparison of the January 19 and February 6 zone files.
The domain previously redirected to a page on whitehouse.gov that espoused the virtues of the Child Tax Credit, which since 1997 has provided tax breaks to American families currently worth $2,000 per child.
That page has also been deleted, though versions can be found on Archive.org.
Also deleted is nlead.gov, the domain for the Biden-created National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, which sought to make records of police misconduct available to LEA recruiters. The web site is now down.
The domains build.gov, invest.gov and others that promoted the Biden-era $568 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, are also gone.
Also deleted, publicserviceloanforgiveness.gov and pslf.gov, which promoted Biden’s student loan forgiveness project, and cleanenergy.gov, which promoted his environmental investment policies.
Here’s the list of domains that have been deleted since January 20. I’ve excluded names that appear to have been owned by state and local governmental registrants.
build.gov
buildbackbetter.gov
childtaxcredit.gov
cleanenergy.gov
economicopportunity.gov
invertir.gov
invest.gov
investinamerica.gov
investinginamerica.gov
nlead.gov
pslf.gov
publicserviceloanforgiveness.gov
unitedwestand.gov
whitehousedrugpolicy.gov
The domains in most cases are still registered, according to Whois records, so they could come back online at a later date, but the fact they have been deleted from the .gov zone file means they no longer resolve.
As DomainGang notes, the domains dei.gov and waste.gov are among those that have been registered since Trump’s inauguration, though neither currently resolve.
About 150 .gov domains have entered the zone file since January 20, but almost all appear to represent small towns around the country, rather than the federal government.
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