The Internet was created in the 1960's when the United States military needed a computer network that would continue to function in the event of a nuclear war. The network needed to be centralized, and not dependent on any one location to keep the network running. The spider web like structure of the Internet provided just this type of stability.

In 1972 the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency created the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). IANA was responsible for assigning unique addresses to each computer connected to the Internet. By 1973, the Internet Protocol or IP addressing system had become the standard by which all networked computers could be located.

The Internet was also useful for business and academia, and eventually the Department of Defense turned it over to the Department of Commerce. This expanded the number of users on the Internet dramatically, and soon there were many organizations on the Internet. This greater number of users created a demand for an easy to remember addressing system. The IP addressing system (a user unfriendly system

using strings of numbers) was not meeting the needs of the users. Researchers and technicians at the University of Wisconsin who developed the first 'name server' in 1984 met this demand. With the new name server, users were no longer required to remember the numbers in other systems' IP addresses. This was the beginning of the current Internet addressing system.

In 1985 the Domain Name System was implemented and the initial Top Level domain names, including .com, .net, and .org, were introduced. Suddenly a string of numbers like 121.245.078.2 could be easily remembered in word format like 'company.com'.

Who manages the Internet and determines policy for it?

In 1997 the Department of Commerce (DOC) decided that they no longer wanted to manage and control Internet name and numbering systems. On July 1 1997, they issued a "Request for Comments on the Registration and Administration of Internet Domain Names". The request invited public comment concerning the future of the Internet naming and numbering system. The government acknowledged that the amazing growth of the Internet had come about due to private rather than public sector forces and that its future should also be in the private sector.

A deadline was set of August 18, 1997 and, at that date, 388 sets of comments had been received via both electronic and traditional forms of communication. Ultimately, more than 430 sets of comments amounting to approximately 1500 pages were received and taken into consideration as a part of the consultation process.

Green Paper

After due deliberation, a ''Green Paper'' (i.e. a discussion draft) was issued on 30 January 1998 by the DOC's National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA). This document laid out the DOC's proposal for the future of the name and numbering system and, once again, invited public comments on the proposed policy. This time more than 650 comments were received. The commenting parties covered all aspects of the Internet community. For example, comments were received from giant corporations and bodies such as IBM, British Telecom, Disney on line, AOL, the US Federal Trade Commission, many from small and medium-sized businesses, as well as numerous individual contributors.