Changes

.net was originally intended for internet-referential purposes, though there are no current restrictions limiting it to certain entities. It was introduced in 1985 by [[IANA]], which is responsible for the overall coordination and management of the DNS; the organization was led by [[Jon Postel]] at the time. On January 28, 1986, the entities overseeing the DNS met and restructured its makeup to correspond to 8 TLDs, including .net, the others are: [[.gov]] (government), [[.edu ]] (American higher education), [[.mil]] (American military), [[.org]] (organization), [[.int]] (international, specifically NATO relations), [[.com]] (commercial purposes), [[.bitnet]] (computers on the BITNET network).<ref>[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920#page-2 RFC 920]</ref><ref>[http://www.livinginternet.com/i/iw_dns_name.htm IW DNS name, LivingInternet.com]</ref>

.net was originally intended for internet-referential purposes, though there are no current restrictions limiting it to certain entities. It was introduced in 1985 by [[IANA]], which is responsible for the overall coordination and management of the DNS; the organization was led by [[Jon Postel]] at the time. On January 28, 1986, the entities overseeing the DNS met and restructured its makeup to correspond to 8 TLDs, including .net, the others are: [[.gov]] (government), [[.edu ]] (American higher education), [[.mil]] (American military), [[.org]] (organization), [[.int]] (international, specifically NATO relations), [[.com]] (commercial purposes), [[.bitnet]] (computers on the BITNET network).<ref>[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920#page-2 RFC 920]</ref><ref>[http://www.livinginternet.com/i/iw_dns_name.htm IW DNS name, LivingInternet.com]</ref>

[[ICANN]] approved [[Verisign]]'s application to be the registry operator of the .net top-level domain name on May 25, 2001.<ref>[http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/verisign/net-index.htm ICANN]</ref>

[[ICANN]] approved [[Verisign]]'s application to be the registry operator of the .net top-level domain name on May 25, 2001.<ref>[http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/agreements/verisign/net-index.htm ICANN]</ref> The .net agreement was most recently renewed in June, 2011, for another 6 years. It was a presumptive renewal given that Verisign only had to prove that it was meeting certain criteria to receive approval.<ref>[http://www.thedomains.com/2011/06/23/icann-approves-the-renewal-of-net-contract-with-verisign/ ICANN Approves The Renewal of Net Contract with Verisign, TheDomains.com]</ref>