Original Domain Name Registrar on Impending Flood of New Top-Level-Domains by the Foundation for Enterprise Development
A recent news headline is that ICANN has released 100 generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Everyone is trying to figure out what that will mean for businesses and investors. Mike Daniels rode the first wave of the Internet boom (in the ’90s) and offers lessons from that wild ride for companies that are riding the current technology boom.
Mike Daniels served as a member of the senior management team of SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) from 1986 to 2004. Daniels initiated SAIC’s purchase of Network Solutions (NSI) for $4.7 million – NSI was the sole domain name registrar at that early stage of the Internet. Daniels served as NSI’s chairman from 1995 – 2000, and NSI was instrumental in the creation of ICANN during that time.
In 2000, Daniels orchestrated the sale of Network Solutions to VeriSign for $19.3 billion (a profit that will be a tough milestone to surpass for current companies in the domain name business).
These stories and more are recounted in NAMES, NUMBERS, AND NETWORK SOLUTIONS: The Monetization of the Internet, by Robert Beyster and Michael Daniels (published by the Foundation for Enterprise Development). It recounts the gripping story of the commercialization of the Internet and highlights the role of domain registrar Network Solutions. It is a riveting read of near misses and hard-won successes, leading to a dramatically changed global commerce landscape.
Here are topics Daniels can address in interviews:
- Will the new crop of domain registration companies be as successful as Network Solutions? Probably not. Dot com remains the most important domain because that was what we publicized in the mid-to-late-1990’s during the .com boom days. Dot com became the brand of choice and remains so today. I believe it will in the future.
- The real question is whether the entire ICANN process is appropriate in terms of how they have structured this and the cost to enter the game. Many believe that ICANN has grown beyond anything ever imagined and that these new domain names and costs associated with them have pushed the limits. The original thinking when we created ICANN did not envision a large organization with a significant multi-million-dollar budget. Going forward, we need to debate the limits of ICANN and its policies.
