In the 1980s, when USC scientist Jon Postel co-created the internet’s domain name infrastructure, he decided that each country needed its own unique extension. He devised a network of country code top-level domains that would append URLs. By 1985, he’d assigned the first three: .us (for the United States), .uk (for the United Kingdom) and .il (for Israel). Within a decade, an entire almanac of these domains—.in (India), .br (Brazil), .au (Australia)—had formed. Niue had its own, too.
For these country-specific extensions to function, they needed an administrator—someone to sell the domain names, provide technical support and take a cut of the profits as compensation. Postel did not think to grant administrative power over them to the relevant governments; instead, he began entrusting management responsibility on a first-come, first-served basis. Postel gave himself administrative rights to .us, and he handed the .uk rights to a professor at University College London. As one internet official later remarked, this approach embodied the early spirit of the internet, an expectation of “the good faith and interest in serving the public of all involved.”
Times changed...
Read more (Wired)
For these country-specific extensions to function, they needed an administrator—someone to sell the domain names, provide technical support and take a cut of the profits as compensation. Postel did not think to grant administrative power over them to the relevant governments; instead, he began entrusting management responsibility on a first-come, first-served basis. Postel gave himself administrative rights to .us, and he handed the .uk rights to a professor at University College London. As one internet official later remarked, this approach embodied the early spirit of the internet, an expectation of “the good faith and interest in serving the public of all involved.”
Times changed...
Read more (Wired)