Virginia residents can promote their internet coolness on special .com license plates.
You might be saying “no, not another license plate story!”, but this was too cool to not pass on.
A Domain Name Wire reader commented on my last post about .com license plates and noted that Virginia offers a .com specific license plate.
The plate is called “Internet Capital” and has .com printed on the right side of each plate. The .com isn’t part of the actual license ID.
Plates are limited to six characters, so it’s still somewhat restricted. They cost an extra $20 per year over a typical license fee.
The Internet Capital plate was authorized by the Virginia General Assembly in 1999 and was available to residents in the summer of 2001.
A spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles told me that 790 Internet Capital license plates are actively registered.
This vanity plate is fitting for Virginia. It’s safe to say that Virginia has been close to the epicenter of the internet for a long time.
Richmond says
So, I could see a web company paying advertising dollars to someone for displaying their domain on the license plate. Flip side, someone driving a junker car decides to plaster yahoo.com on his license plate and gets sued for trademark infringement – heck, maybe the state gets sued for issueing the plate in the first place. Will be interesting to watch.
FarmerJohn says
All this hub-bub actually is rather good for the short “URL” crowd.
I don’t much care for the plate itself.
Josh says
cool indeed
Philip Corwin says
Back a decade ago, when one of my clients was Sharman Networks (Kazaa), my Caddy had VA .com plates that read ‘MP3P2P’ 😉
Mike says
Those are pretty cool 🙂 I wish my state had those, or allowed a dot on a custom plate.