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Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is a company, person, or office that manages the reservation of Internet domain names.
A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar operates in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries. As of March 2024, there are 2,800 domain name registrars accredited by ICANN.
The need for a central authority to assign or administer domain names emerged from collaboration among computer network pioneers as they created the Domain Name System in the 1980s. In a 1982 draft Request for Comments (RFC), editor Jonathan Postel proposed a "czar of domains." In her revisions of the draft, Jake Feinler crossed out "czar" and introduced the term "registrar." She designated the DOD Network Information Center, of which she was the head, as the registrar of top-level domains.
This draft was published as RFC 819. The RFC standardized the naming system for computers on the internet, creating domain names. It specifies that "associated with each domain there is a single person (or office) called the registrar."
The earliest domain names were names of organizations, such as .arpa for the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Feinler switched to a system of naming by generic categories, creating .mil, .gov, .org, .edu, and .com as generic top-level domain. This existed alongside a system of country code top-level domains administered by Postel. Eventually the role of registrar for each of the TLDs was delegated to various universities (the University of Dortmund for .de, Kuwait University for .kw, etc.) and, via US government contracts, to private companies.
As the internet expanded in the early 1990s, becoming more commercial and international, the US government decided it could no longer provide domain name management free of charge.
From 1991 to 1999, Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) operated the registries for the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains (TLDs). In addition to the function of domain name registry operator, it was also the sole registrar for these domains. However, several companies had developed independent registrar services. In 1996, one such company, Ivan Pope's company, NetNames, developed the concept of a standalone commercial domain name registration service that would sell domain registration and other associated services to the public, effectively establishing the retail arm of an industry with the registries being the wholesalers.[citation needed] NSI assimilated this model, which ultimately led to the separation of registry and registrar functions.[citation needed]
In 1997, PGMedia filed an antitrust suit against NSI citing the DNS root zone as an essential facility, and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) was joined as a defendant in this action. Ultimately, NSI was granted immunity from antitrust litigation, but the litigation created enough pressure to restructure the domain name market.
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Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is a company, person, or office that manages the reservation of Internet domain names.
A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar operates in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries. As of March 2024, there are 2,800 domain name registrars accredited by ICANN.
The need for a central authority to assign or administer domain names emerged from collaboration among computer network pioneers as they created the Domain Name System in the 1980s. In a 1982 draft Request for Comments (RFC), editor Jonathan Postel proposed a "czar of domains." In her revisions of the draft, Jake Feinler crossed out "czar" and introduced the term "registrar." She designated the DOD Network Information Center, of which she was the head, as the registrar of top-level domains.
This draft was published as RFC 819. The RFC standardized the naming system for computers on the internet, creating domain names. It specifies that "associated with each domain there is a single person (or office) called the registrar."
The earliest domain names were names of organizations, such as .arpa for the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Feinler switched to a system of naming by generic categories, creating .mil, .gov, .org, .edu, and .com as generic top-level domain. This existed alongside a system of country code top-level domains administered by Postel. Eventually the role of registrar for each of the TLDs was delegated to various universities (the University of Dortmund for .de, Kuwait University for .kw, etc.) and, via US government contracts, to private companies.
As the internet expanded in the early 1990s, becoming more commercial and international, the US government decided it could no longer provide domain name management free of charge.
From 1991 to 1999, Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) operated the registries for the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains (TLDs). In addition to the function of domain name registry operator, it was also the sole registrar for these domains. However, several companies had developed independent registrar services. In 1996, one such company, Ivan Pope's company, NetNames, developed the concept of a standalone commercial domain name registration service that would sell domain registration and other associated services to the public, effectively establishing the retail arm of an industry with the registries being the wholesalers.[citation needed] NSI assimilated this model, which ultimately led to the separation of registry and registrar functions.[citation needed]
In 1997, PGMedia filed an antitrust suit against NSI citing the DNS root zone as an essential facility, and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) was joined as a defendant in this action. Ultimately, NSI was granted immunity from antitrust litigation, but the litigation created enough pressure to restructure the domain name market.