BIG^(TM) : The Basic Internet Guide
A Sourcebook for Learning Web Essentials
in the School, the Home and the Office
by Andis Kaulins, J.D. Stanford University
Lecturer a.D. University of Trier, Author Langenscheidt Fachverlag
(in collaboration with Chris Loehr, Erlangen)
Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004 by Andis Kaulins. All rights reserved.

PART 1
Essential Internet Knowledge

Chapter 2
The Administration of the Internet

Page 12 - Network Solutions (NSI), Early Domains

Network Solutions (NSI)

In 1993 Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), later a wholly owned subsidiary of VeriSign, entered into a cooperative agreement with NSF to provide Internet registration services for "generic top level domains" (gTLDs). [This agreement was later transferred by the NSF to the US Department of Commerce.] The gTLDs included the now well-known extensions .com, .org, and .net, which are publicly available - as also the extensions .edu, .gov, .mil, and .int, which are not available to the general public. NSI at that time also took control of InterNIC (the Integrated Network Information Center), which initially registered Internet domain names on a non-profit basis, mostly in the USA. Read these Internet FAQS from 1994.

1996 - First Fee Charges for Domains

The number of Internet registrations continued to rise and in 1996, in order to cover the rising costs of Internet operation, the NSF granted permission to NSI to charge fees for the registration of new domains and also to charge renewal fees from the gTLDs which had already been registered prior to the charging of such fees. Commercial enterprises soon began to realize that an Internet presence was a necessity and that a proper Internet "address" was a must. Internet domain name registration quickly became a big business for NSI.

1998 - Adoption of A New System of Internet Administration and Domain Name Registration

The monopoly status of NSI in the gTLD business - as well as other government and management considerations - led to the adoption of a new system of registration and administration in 1998. This system separated the registry of Internet address space by registries from the actual domain name registration process by registrars, thus permitting new registrars to compete with NSI in the domain name registration process. A detailed history of the administration of the Internet prior to 1998 is found described in PGMedia v. Network Solutions, (PGMedia, Inc. d/b/a Name.Space, v. Network Solutions, Inc., et al., 51 F. Supp. 2d 389 (S.D.N.Y., Mar. 17, 1999) aff'd. on other grds. 202 F.3d 573 (2d Cir., Jan. 21, 2000)).

The following pages describe the resulting organizations and the system and processes of internet administration, space address registry and domain name registration

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