The first .com domain to be registered is symbolics.com. Back at those days, not everyone can afford to register a domain name as it definitely will not cost just USD$10 per year and hence majority domains on the list are owned by Multinational Corporations (MNCs). Surprisingly, Microsoft.com isn’t part of the list as it was not registered until May 1991.
Our very own, sq.com (Singapore Airlines) is on the list but I have no idea whether they registered it or bought it from someone later on.
It takes about 2 years just to get 100 .com domains to be bought up, but now I guess it takes like few hours?
During 1985 I was just 1 year old! Imagine if you have purchases a few 3 letters domains, I think you will be a millionaire by now.
Source: http://www.iwhois.com/oldest/ via Neowin: First 100 .com domains ever registered
I seriously DO NOT think that is a good idea. Lawyers and analysts has already said that ICANN vote will cause URL chaos!
This is really a RETARDED decision by ICANN. I think when they are in need of money, they will just launch a new TLD and companies will have to buy them to protect their intellectual property.
This is just another form of business to them as you can see they are charging $50K to $100K for the new names, which is ridiculously priced.
At its meeting in Paris, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a not-for-profit organization that oversees the naming scheme for web sites, voted to accept a proposal that will allow companies to purchase new top-level domain names ending in almost whatever suffix they choose.
So, for example, instead of being restricted to sites ending in .com or .org., eBay could have a site that ends in .ebay, or New York City could end its website address with .nyc.
The new naming process will begin in 2009. The first suffixes will probably be given to businesses and other major organizations. Countries are expected to keep their specific suffixes, but, as in the example above, cities could also get individualized URLs, such as .london or .chicago.
In an effort to deter cybersquatters, the organization is likely to charge a hefty price for the new names. Some experts have estimated that the new domain names could cost anywhere from $50,000 (£25,200) to $100,000 or more. ICANN plans to give companies with trademarked names priority for those names.
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