In 1985, registering a .com domain cost nothing, required a technical request rather than a shopping cart, and produced only six names in twelve months, before the millionth .com arrived in 1997 and the 100 million mark in 2012 (opens in new tab)

On March 15, 1985, a Massachusetts computer company called Symbolics Inc. became the first business to put its name under .com, not by clicking through a registrar checkout page, but by entering a naming system still small enough to be handled by people who knew each other. The name was symbolics.com. It was free. It […]