The first domain registrar and the story of ICANN
How domain registration began at SRI's Network Information Center, how Network Solutions ran every .com, why ICANN was created, and how competition brought hundreds of registrars.
Today you can register a domain in two minutes from dozens of companies. It wasn't always that way. For years, one research center, then one company, controlled every .com on Earth. This is the story of how domain registration went from a handful of researchers to a worldwide market, and how ICANN came to oversee it all.
The first registrar: SRI's Network Information Center
Before there were companies selling domains, there was the Network Information Center (NIC) at SRI International in California. From 1972, under computer scientist Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, the NIC kept the official directory of the computers on ARPANET, the network that grew into the internet. When the Domain Name System arrived in the mid-1980s, the SRI NIC handled the first registrations, including symbolics.com in 1985, the first .com ever. Read the story of the first domain names.
Alongside the NIC, the late Jon Postel at the University of Southern California managed the internet's master lists of names and numbers, a role that became known as IANA (the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority).
Network Solutions: the one company that ran .com
In the early 1990s, the US National Science Foundation moved registration work to a small Virginia company called Network Solutions. From January 1993 it was the registrar for .com, .net and .org, as part of a project called InterNIC.
At first, registration was free. Then the web exploded. In 1995, Network Solutions began charging $100 for two years. It was the only place in the world to register a .com, and it became enormously valuable. In 2000, at the peak of the dot-com boom, VeriSign bought Network Solutions for $21 billion in stock.
The birth of ICANN
By the late 1990s, the internet had become too important to be run by one government contract and a few individuals. The US government wanted a private, global, non-profit body to coordinate it. The result was the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), founded in 1998 as a California non-profit. Jon Postel helped shape it but died in October 1998, just weeks after ICANN was formed.
ICANN's job is coordination: setting the rules for generic endings like .com, accrediting registrars, and overseeing the internet's root list of endings.
Competition arrives: the first rival registrars
ICANN's first big move was ending the single-seller era. In April 1999 it chose five "testbed" registrars to compete with Network Solutions: AOL, CORE, France Telecom (Oléane), Melbourne IT and Register.com. Register.com went live first, on June 7, 1999, becoming the first company besides Network Solutions to sell .com names.
A key change made this possible: the registry (the master database for an ending) was split from registrars (the shops that sell names). Network Solutions' registry side, now Verisign, still runs .com, while hundreds of registrars compete on price and service. Prices fell fast. VeriSign later sold the Network Solutions registrar business in 2003 and kept the registry.
From 7 endings to more than 1,000
- 2000s: ICANN added a few new endings, such as .info, .biz, .mobi and .asia.
- 2012: ICANN's New gTLD Program opened applications for brand-new endings, receiving nearly 2,000 applications.
- 2013 onward: hundreds of new endings went live, from .app and .shop to city endings like .nyc and .ist (Istanbul).
2016: the internet's address book goes global
For years, the US government kept an oversight role over IANA's functions. On October 1, 2016, that contract ended and oversight passed to the global multi-stakeholder community through ICANN, a milestone known as the IANA stewardship transition.
How it works today
| Who | Role | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ICANN | Coordinates the system and sets rules for generic endings | Accredits registrars |
| Registry | Runs the database for one ending | Verisign runs .com |
| Registrar | Sells names to the public | Cloudflare, Namecheap, GoDaddy |
| Registrant | Registers and uses the name | You |
Ready to get your own? Read how to buy a domain name.
Sources
Questions
What was the first domain registrar?
The Network Information Center at SRI International handled the earliest registrations. Network Solutions took over .com, .net and .org registration in 1993.
When was ICANN created?
ICANN was founded in 1998 as a non-profit to coordinate the internet's names and numbers.
What was the first registrar to compete with Network Solutions?
Register.com, which went live on June 7, 1999, as one of ICANN's five testbed registrars.
Who runs .com today?
Verisign runs the .com registry, and hundreds of accredited registrars sell .com names to the public.