The

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

net is a

generic top-level domain Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of eve ...

(gTLD) used in the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...

of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. The name is derived from the word ''network'', indicating it was originally intended for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s and other

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

companies. However, there are no official restrictions and the domain is now a general-purpose namespace. It is still popular with network operators and the advertising sector, and it is often treated as an alternative to .

History

is one of the original top-level domains (the other six being , , , , , and ) despite not being mentioned in RFC 920, having been created in January 1985.

Verisign Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and gener ...

, the operator of after acquiring

Network Solutions Network Solutions, LLC is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th largest .com domain name registrar with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name registrar, Network S ...

, held an operations contract that expired on 30 June 2005.

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

, the organization responsible for domain management, sought proposals from organizations to operate the domain upon expiration of the contract. Verisign regained the contract bid and secured its control over the registry for another six years. On 30 June 2011, the contract with Verisign was automatically renewed for another six years. This is because of a resolution approved by the ICANN board, which states that renewal will be automatic as long as Verisign meets certain ICANN requirements. As of May 2022, Verisign continues to manage .net.

Registration

Registrations are processed via accredited registrars and

internationalized domain name An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified ...

s are also accepted. The first created .net domain name is nordu.net. It was created on 1 January 1985 according to the public records, and

NORDUnet NORDUnet is an international collaboration between the National research and education networks in the Nordic countries. Members The members of NORDUnet are: * SUNET of Sweden * UNINETT of Norway * FUNET of Finland * Forskningsnettet of De ...

has used this domain name since 1985. Net extension is the most preferred gTLD just after com. Total registered domain names with net extension are 13.4 million according to the Domain Name Industry Report published in March 2020, which publishes every quarter. As of 2015, it is the fifth most popular top-level domain, after , , and .

References

External links

List of accredited registrars
{{DEFAULTSORT:NET Generic top-level domains Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries members Computer-related introductions in 1985