Last month marked 40 years since the registration of the world’s first ever .com domain name – symbolics.com – in March 1985. It’s a time to reflect both on the role .com has played in the evolution and growth of the internet over the past 40 years, and on the importance of ensuring that .com remains secure, stable, and resilient for the billions of people who rely on it every day.
Who could have imagined in 1985 that over the course of the next four decades, internet users would register hundreds of millions of domain names, and that many of those domain names would be instrumental in transforming commerce, entertainment, and communication across the globe? Many of the world’s most influential companies and individuals have chosen .com as the stable foundation for their brands and online presence, and today, .com supports trillions of dollars in global commerce and enables billions of internet users to connect online with confidence – anytime, anywhere.
But while many people interact with .com addresses every day, few know about the powerful technological infrastructure that has made .com a reliable, foundational element of the internet for decades. And while this infrastructure operates largely unseen and unknown, its unparalleled performance and continued evolution has formed the basis for the trust internet users place in .com.
The advanced global technological constellation that powers .com spans more than 60 countries and processes an average of more than 400 billion Domain Name System (DNS) transactions each day. Verisign invests continuously to build and innovate this infrastructure, which is the most technically sophisticated of its kind, and has delivered 100 percent DNS availability for .com for more than 27 years without interruption.
This infrastructure includes an advanced registration system, which reliably updates and maintains an accurate record of all registered .com domain names on a continuous basis, ensuring that millions of registry transactions are processed correctly, and millions of daily changes – including cryptographic updates to support DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) – are distributed to a highly resilient global resolution constellation within seconds.
As the steward of .com, Verisign is also responsible for defending it from highly sophisticated and massive volumetric cyberattacks, which is critical to maintaining and extending .com’s unprecedented 27+ year uninterrupted availability record. To accomplish this, Verisign employs a comprehensive enterprise risk management program and threat-driven defensive practices that drive continuous improvements to Verisign’s systems and programs.
The evolution of .com as a secure, stable, and resilient cornerstone of the internet’s global infrastructure over the past several decades has helped to contribute to the overall success and stability of the global DNS over that same period . For instance, Verisign’s pragmatic and deliberate approach in the development and deployment of DNSSEC in the root zone in 2010, followed by .com in early 2011, extended far beyond the infrastructure Verisign operates. Today virtually all internet users worldwide benefit from the enhanced protections that DNSSEC provides. The reason that the DNS – a technology first deployed more than 40 years ago – has been able to keep pace with the rapid evolution of other internet technologies, is thanks to the continued collaboration, cooperation, and dedication of a global community of DNS technologists, of which Verisign is proud to be a part.
The success of this approach is evident every day in the trust that entrepreneurs, innovators, and consumers place in .com and the DNS more broadly to reliably support the most important aspects of their online lives, from business, to banking, to key connections with family and loved ones. Maintaining that trust is the responsibility of every DNS infrastructure operator across the globe and remains at the core of Verisign’s mission.
The story of .com over the past four decades has been written by the millions of internet users who used their .com addresses to build businesses, create communities, and establish their online presence. We’re excited to see what these users have in store for the next 40 years. In the meantime, Verisign remains committed to ensuring the security, stability, and resiliency of .com, which has meant so much to so many people across the globe.
