The Early Web Era
1990–1999
Significance
The web democratized the internet, turning domain names into valuable commercial assets for the first time. The domain land rush of the 1990s established the speculative market for domain names and revealed the need for international governance bodies.
Key Events
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三月 12, 1989
Technology Change
World Wide Web Invented by Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee submitted his landmark proposal 'Information Management: A Proposal' to CERN management on March 12, 1989, outlining the system of hypertext documents and links that would become the World …
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八月 6, 1991
Milestone
First Web Page Published at CERN
Tim Berners-Lee published the first public web page at CERN on August 6, 1991, at the URL http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. The page described the World Wide Web project itself. This event marked …
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四月 22, 1993
Technology Change
Mosaic Browser Launches, Triggers Domain Registration Boom
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications released Mosaic 1.0 on April 22, 1993, the first widely available graphical web browser for multiple operating systems. Mosaic made the World Wide Web …
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九月 14, 1995
Milestone
First Paid Domain Registrations: NSI Introduces $100 Fee
Network Solutions Inc. began charging $100 for a two-year domain registration on September 14, 1995, marking the end of free domain registrations and the birth of the commercial domain market. …
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一月 1, 1997
Milestone
.de Becomes Europe's Largest ccTLD, Surpassing 1 Million
Germany's .de ccTLD surpassed one million registered domains in 1997, becoming the first European country-code TLD to reach that milestone and one of the first ccTLDs globally to do so. …
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六月 1, 1997
Milestone
.com Registrations Cross One Million
The .com TLD surpassed one million registered domains in mid-1997, a landmark that would have been unimaginable when the extension was created in 1985 with just a handful of registrations. …
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一月 1, 1998
Acquisition/Merger
.tv Sold to Verisign for $50 Million
The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu signed a lucrative deal with a consortium that later became part of Verisign (through the acquisition of the .tv Corporation) to commercialize its country-code …
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九月 18, 1998
ICANN Decision
ICANN Founded to Govern Global DNS
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was incorporated on September 18, 1998, as a nonprofit public-benefit corporation. The US Department of Commerce transferred responsibility for DNS coordination …
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四月 1, 1999
ICANN Decision
WIPO Launches Domain Dispute Arbitration Center
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) established its Arbitration and Mediation Center in April 1999 to handle domain name disputes arising from cybersquatting and trademark conflicts, shortly before ICANN's UDRP …
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十二月 1, 1999
Milestone
business.com Sells for $7.5 Million — Record at the Time
Business.com was sold for $7.5 million in December 1999, setting a world record for the highest price paid for a domain name at that time and signaling the peak speculative …
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三月 10, 2000
Milestone
Dot-Com Bubble Peaks: NASDAQ at 5,048
The NASDAQ Composite index reached its all-time peak of 5,048.62 on March 10, 2000, marking the apex of the dot-com bubble. Domain names had become speculative assets — business.com sold …