SRI's Role in Assigning Top-Level Domain Names and Managing the Network Information Center (NIC)

Internet users may wonder who originated the concept of website addresses such as "www.sri.com" with their extensions of ".com," ".org", ".gov", etc. Known as top-level domain names, or TLDs, these addresses were assigned to network hosts by the Network Information Center (NIC) beginning in the mid-1980s. The NIC—run by SRI from 1970 until 1991—was the information hub first for the ARPANET (the small network that predated the Internet, on which SRI was an original node), and later for the Defense Data Network (DDN). The ARPANET became the segment of the DDN used by government, university, and other researchers. These networks eventually grew into the Internet we use today.

Host names were important components of the network, because these names and their corresponding addresses were used to correctly direct traffic around it. As early as 1971, one of the NIC's assignments was to maintain and administer host tables for the network. Later, the NIC also administered Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler led the NIC for most of the 22 years that it was managed by SRI. In 1991, the Internet opened to commercial traffic, and the role of naming was transferred to other government and commercial entities. (No one knew back then that "dot com" would become household words!). Governance of the naming process fell to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in 1998.

Sources: Elizabeth Feinler, Donald Nielson (from his book, A Heritage of Innovation: SRI's First Half Century)