.web: The Root of the World Wide Web Finally Enters DNS After a 33-Year Saga

The internet world has witnessed a landmark event: the top-level domain .web, long dreamed of by the community for decades, has finally passed a key delegation milestone into the global Domain Name System (DNS). This means that after a long and complex legal battle spanning decades, .web has officially become a full part of the internet’s root zone, alongside giants like .com, .net, and .org. Its arrival, brought in by Verisign, the company that administers .com and .net, concludes an epic story intertwined with the history of the World Wide Web itself.

The History of the Long Road to .web

The first generic domains appeared back in 1984, but the concept of the World Wide Web as we know it today emerged only in 1989. Since then, the term “web” has become synonymous with the internet, yet its own top-level domain remained unavailable. Over these 33 years, as the internet rapidly evolved, hundreds of new, often exotic domain extensions appeared, from .pizza to .guitars, but .web seemed destined to remain out of reach forever.

Attempts to secure .web date back to 1997, when a group called the Internet Ad Hoc Committee proposed it among seven new domains, but the proposal received little attention. That same year, Image Online Design began its own efforts to register and administer .web, but without success.

The Mysterious Auction and Million-Dollar Bids

The real turning point in this story came in 2016, when ICANN, the organization responsible for managing domain names, held an auction to resolve the competition over .web and .webs. Seven companies submitted applications, but the winner was the little-known firm NU DOT CO LLC, which offered an impressive $135 million. By comparison, the .webs domain, which has a similar sound, was acquired by Vistaprint for a symbolic $1.

A natural question arose: where did an unknown company get such enormous funds? As later became clear, Verisign stood behind the deal. The company secretly financed NU DOT CO LLC’s bid through a shell structure. This sparked outrage among competitors, including Afilias (later renamed Altanovo). They argued that Verisign’s participation through a proxy company violated ICANN rules.

Legal Battles and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Attention

The deal triggered a real stir. The public discussion raised questions about genuine competition in the domain name market rather than just the expansion of an already dominant player’s portfolio. Interestingly, Verisign already controls nearly 90% of the .com and .net domain market, which raises doubts about how “new” the competition will really be with the arrival of .web, also owned by this corporation.

Still, industry experts predict that .web could become a significant source of revenue for Verisign. If the company sets the price at around $15 per domain per year and even 1% of .com domain owners register the matching .web version, that could bring the company tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. This new domain could potentially become both a powerful branding tool and a platform for developing innovative new web services.

The launch of .web is an important event that completes the long journey toward a domain name that perfectly reflects the essence of the global network. Despite the questionable methods used to obtain it, .web is now available to users, opening up new possibilities for digital identity.