dot com et al.The secret life of Internet domains

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The story of internet domains might seem narrow—as narrow as your browser’s address bar. But there’s a whole world hidden in those little URLs.

Early domain investors have made millions, flipping domains like sex.com for $13 million. The small island nation of Anguilla earns nearly half its national revenue selling .ai domains. In the 90s when Yugoslavia split, a group of Slovenian scientists broke into an IT building to steal .yu domain records and literally cut the building’s internet access with scissors.

There are now over a thousand top-level domains—the part to the right of the dot—like .net and .nyc, .porn and .pizza, .gay and .google. Who creates these? And who makes the rules?

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dot com et al. is Pete Millspaugh’s debut book, exploring the art, money, politics, and technology of internet domains. Pete has written for WIRED magazine and works as a programmer, writing code when he’s not writing prose. To follow along, subscribe to the book’s email newsletter ahead of its publication: