Opinion ID: 774479
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: NSI's Domain Name Registration Service

Text: 3 In the early 1990s, the National Science Foundation (NSF), an agency of the federal government, assumed responsibility for coordinating and funding management of the nonmilitary portion of the Internet infrastructure. Thomas v. Network Solutions, Inc., 176 F.3d 500, 504 (D.C. Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1115 (2000); 63 Fed. Reg. 31741, 31742 (June 10, 1998). Through a competitive bid process, NSI was selected to provide nonmilitary domain name registration services and entered into a Cooperative Agreement with NSF. Id.; see also Nat'l A-1 Adver., Inc. v. Network Solutions, Inc., 121 F. Supp. 2d 156, 161-62 (D.N.H. 2000). During the period when the events giving rise to this lawsuit took place, NSI had the exclusive authority to register second-level domain names to the public for four top-level Internet domains: .com, .net, .edu, and .org. 3 In practical terms, this exclusivity meant that anyone seeking to register a name under one of those domains could only do so through NSI. 4 Through its registration service, NSI ensured that no two parties registered the same domain name. For the most part, NSI's registration process was completely electronic, requiring no human intervention by the company. The application was available on the Internet and was transmitted to NSI by electronic mail. NSI's system would then compare the requested domain name with all previously registered names. Generally, if the name had not already been assigned to another party, NSI would register it to the applicant for a fee. 5 In September 1998, NSF transferred responsibility for administering the Cooperative Agreement with NSI to the Department of Commerce. Two months later, in response to a presidential initiative to privatize, increase competition, and promote international participation in the domain name system, the Department of Commerce transferred control of Internet domain names from the government to a private, nonprofit corporation, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN was then responsible for overseeing the transition from a sole-registrar to a multiple-registrar system. See Nat'l A-1 Adver., 121 F. Supp. 2d at 162-63; 63 Fed. Reg. 31741, 31744, 31749 (June 10, 1998); 63 Fed. Reg. 8826, 8826-27 (Feb. 20, 1998). NSI's exclusive arrangement ended in June 1999.