Domain Industry History

The complex domain name industry is at present managed by ICANN or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, but the history of the domain industry goes back further than you may think.

Domain Industry: 1972 – 1985

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which assigned addresses to each computer linked to the network, was created by the US DoD in 1972. All the networked computers could be identified using this IP address by the end of 1973.

The world’s first nameserver was developed in 1984 and the domain name system (DNS) was introduced in 1985 with the advent of the generic top level domains such as.org, .com, and .net.

Domain Industry: 1991 – 1998

The architecture of the domain name system was designed to help spread the DNS information across the network. In 1991 the National Science Foundation was given the responsibility of management and maintenance of the Internet. Later, this responsibility was assigned to Network Solutions.

In earlier days, the registration of domain names was free of cost, but in 1992 registration and maintenance fee was introduced with the formation of a new organization called InterNIC (Internet’s Network Information Centre). This organization governed the domain name system services and its registry. The ICANN was later formed in 1998 and all the responsibilities regarding IP address allocation, management of root servers and the assignment of protocol parameters were transferred to it. Its primary interest is to encourage competition in domain industry. It has also implemented the shared registration system where all the accredited companies of ICANN have been given the responsibility to add the domain to the global domain name database.

Domain Industry Today

About 19 million domain names have been registered to date, with thousands of others registering more and more everyday. The domain industry is flourishing at a rate of 30% every year. The phenomenal growth of the domain industry is clear proof of the benefits of transferring domain registration from the control of government to private sector.