Where Domains Come From

Once upon a time, the .com domains were administrated by the National Science Foundation, a part of the United States Government. Domain registrations were free. In addition to handling the registrations for names, the NSF maintained the Domain Name System (DNS). This is the massive, worldwide system of databases that looks up domain names and translates them into the numerical IP addresses that computers on the Internet identify themselves with. It is how you are able to find websites and how email is delivered.

Maintaining the system, however, was expensive, and as is done to many such large, complicated, expensive systems, it was privatized. In summary, a commercial venture called Network Solutions was created to charge registration fees for domains. This money would be used to pay for the system.