When I posted about Google's 10th birthday and their search index from 2001 I got the suggestion to write about how things where on the Internet back in 2001 (Xavier Media was already 5 years back then ). So this is the first part of a series about Internet back in 2001 . I'm planning to write a new article in this series for a few Sundays (lets see how that's working out ).

The new Top Level Domains (TLDs)

In 2000 Icann decided to expand the number of Generic Top Level Domains available on the Internet with seven new TLDs. Previously you could only register .COM, .NET, .ORG and some country code domains. Some other TLDs like .GOV and .EDU existed too, but since they are special interest TLDs not everyone can register domain names under those TLDs.

In June 2001 .BIZ, .INFO and .MUSEUM started accepting registrations and if I don't remember completely wrong there where a lot of discussions regarding if it was the right decision by Icann to increase the number of TLDs. Back then we had already had a lot of problems with "entrepreneurs" registering business names as domain names, since back then not all companies (not even all big companies) had their own domain name registered.

Today these "entrepreneurs" are known as cybersquatters or domain squatters and are often fighted by law suits . In 2001 many companies still paid these bad guys money to get their domain names back.

Shortly after the release of .BIZ, .INFO and .MUSEUM the .BIZ TLD got famous (or infamous) for all the spam sites registered. Almost all new .BIZ sites was in some way related to spam, trojans and other malware activities which gave .BIZ a really bad reputation.

As an example Privoxy says this about .BIZ according to Wikipedia:

"'.biz' is blocked since we've almost never seen a legitimate site, those TLDs are a scandal to begin with, and updating the blocklist every time we saw a spam for them was way too much work. Instead, we'll have an exclusion list for the extremely rare legitimate '.biz' site."

I think this has changed a bit since then, but unfortunately .BIZ is in most cases still almost unknown to non-geeks (i.e. the average Internet user).

Today I think .INFO is more famous for the spamming then .BIZ and that may be due to the generous pricing picture for .INFO (i.e. you can in some cases get a .INFO for $1.99 for the first year). .INFO is also more known for all the proxy sites using .INFO domains since as soon as a proxy gets blocked they just register a new domain name. Since the pricing for .INFO is so low they can change domain name 4 times per year at the same cost as an average domain name under any other TLD.

But I don't think we should be too hard on these new TLDs since according to me they've actually put some pressure on Verisign (operating .COM and .NET) to reduce the prices for registrations and renewals. Today you can get a .COM domain for about $10, but it used to be $100 in 1996 when I got my first domain and some of that price decrease is thanks to .BIZ and .INFO.

Xavier Media got it's first .BIZ domain in January 2003. When did you get your first .BIZ domain?

I just read some awful news: The prices for domain names will go up! According to Domain Tools Verisign will be allowed to increase domain prices by 7% per year for 4 of the next 6 years. They can also increase prices two more times if it's necessary for for security or stability. In other words we should prepare us for 6 price increases!

Registrars should be able to see these price increases if Verisign are allowed to increase prices with 7% per year:
New price: $6.42
Year 2: $6.87
Year 3: $7.35
Year 4: $7.86
Year 5: $8.42
Year 6: $9.00

The registrars will of course pass the price increases on to their customer (us, the domain name owners) It's time to do something about the Verisign monopoly!