.net

Created in 1985 for the organizations that ran network infrastructure — internet service providers, backbone operators, and networking vendors — .net long ago outgrew that brief. VeriSign operates the registry, which holds approximately 13.2 million domains, and no eligibility rules apply. In practice the extension serves as the most common general-purpose substitute when a preferred .com string is already taken. A residual technical connotation survives, and some infrastructure and hosting companies still choose it deliberately for that association.