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25 Years of the .com gTLD

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'm-not-sure-where-to-send-the-hallmark-card dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The domain COM was installed as one of the first set of top-level domains when the Domain Name System was first implemented for use on the Internet in January 1985. The internet celebrates a landmark event on the 15th of March — the 25th anniversary of the day the first .com name was registered. Of the 250 million websites, there are over 80 million active .com sites. In March 1985, Symbolics computers of Cambridge, Massachusetts entered the history books with an internet address ending in .com (however, on 27 August 2009, it was sold to XF.com Investments). That same year another five companies jumped on a very slow bandwagon. Here is a list of the 100 oldest still-existing registered .com domains."

10 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No .. by Dilligent · · Score: 5, Informative

    No microsoft.com ?

    Microsoft didnae believe in the internet... it was not until the mid 90ies when they realised that it had taken off without them aboard.

  2. Re:tomato by toastar · · Score: 4, Funny

    tomato

    But It's pronounced tomato!

  3. They should have kept the price high by Jazz-Masta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When it was only InterNIC assigning domain names, it was $100/year, and then $70/year. I remember carefully choosing which domains to register - and so did everyone else. There were very few squatters back then.

    I believe passing the torch to ICANN, and then having GoDaddy (Wild West) pop up offering $6 .COM will be remembered as the ruin of the Internet. Not to mention the 2-3 day "evaluation" period where squatters could hold a domain without paying for it.

    Now they've opened up .CO (Columbian) for non-Columbian registration. Pre-registration is $299, and the registrars are trying to push it as the next big TLD.

    1. Re:They should have kept the price high by qwijibo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Back in my day, we didn't have to pay for domains. They were free, you just set up a couple of name servers and emailed in a form. I remember sending uunet $50 back then, not for the domain, but for them to set up a couple of name servers to be authoritative for the domain. When I had my own machines on the net, I provided name servers for free so others could get domains without spending a penny.

    2. Re:They should have kept the price high by MrCawfee · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Godaddy had the 9.95 price point when their competition was ~25/yr, and it wasn't immediate. .CO is the .new .CM. I work at a registrar and almost all of our .CM registrations tend to be screened out using fake credit cards. Even after it goes live and the price point for .CO is probally going to be ~60/yr, that is still too expensive for the "legitimate" squatter to put up their advertising pages. Judging from the .CM registrations at my company that got through the screening process, they tend to be deleted within a few months when the credit card dispute comes through. The registry doesn't care because they have already gotten their registration fee. I'd say that atleast 50% of our .CM registrations are screened out as fraud automatically, and the remainder are a mix between companies trying for brand protection and fraud. .CO will never be a big legitimate tld, my feeling is that you are going to see:
          a) .CO domains parked or forwarded by legitimate users for brand protection
          b) .CO domains parked by the registrar due to a chargeback so they can get atleast some of the money they lost back.
          c) .CO domains parked by the client until the company that owns the name goes through the dispute process.

      Bad thing for the internet, good thing for Columbia, good for .

  4. Re:No .. by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft thought the internet was a fad and that everybody would use a Microsoft-branded network (can't remember the name, it was similar to Compuserve or something). I remember having to install Trumpet or WinSocket or whatever the name was, just to add TCP/IP to Windows 3.11 so I could browse websites.

  5. Re:I knew it! by toastar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Stargate Information Systems continued to provide community service until 1988.

    I LESS THAN THREE the internet archive.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20001210223600/www.stargate.com/history.html

  6. When I started out by idontgno · · Score: 4, Funny

    "DNS" was a "HOSTS.TXT" file FTP'd down from ISI.

    Now stop doing zone transfers across my lawn, you punks!

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  7. See What's New in Microsoft Publisher 97!! by ArundelCastle · · Score: 4, Funny

    Earliest WayBack Machine entry for MS:
    http://web.archive.org/web/19961020014044/http://www.microsoft.com/

    The thing that makes me laugh most about this slice of history is the footer link to /MISC/CPYRIGHT.HTM
    I bet they still have some of those 8.3s kicking around.

  8. Re:Why is Slashdot not a .com? by icebraining · · Score: 4, Informative

    I registered the domain name Slashdot.org as a joke. It was 'org' because I didn't want a .com -- those were so common. I always thought org would be cooler, and besides, I had no commercial plans in mind. (Years later this bit me on the ass since someone else registered the .com. Doh!) The URL was meant to be unpronounceable by anyone -- a joke ultimately that has backfired on me countless times when I'm called and asked what the URL is to the damn thing. Jeff 'Hemos' Bates (now a VP of something or other with SourceForge, Inc.) was in the living room when I was registering the domain name. We all wanted email addresses with a unique domain name that wasn't attached to our school, so he chipped in on the registration fee.

    A Brief History of Slashdot Part 1, Chips & Dips

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