In early April, the number of domain names registered with InterNIC, the Washington, DC, organization that approves .net, .com, .org, .edu, and .gov addresses, crossed the 340,000 mark. That's up 66 percent from the 205,000 signed on at the beginning of the year.
Those new domain names represent US$10 million in registration fees. Remember when just last year people said this level of money pouring into a Web company was fantasy? With 10,000 or so name requests weekly, the InterNIC franchise will be worth more than a billion dollars this year.
Perhaps the National Science Foundation should have been more careful in handing out this monopoly. Not that we'll ever see the contract broken at this point, InterNIC would likely Þght tooth and nail to keep its lucrative business going.
ELECTRIC WORD
The Web Nets a Commercial Success
