I stand corrected.... It was apparently not a lottery assignment... It was however free... So he did not buy it but I will give him credit for having the foresight to register it......
http://people.itu.int/~shaw/docs/dns.html
The principle for registration of domain names has been till now first come, first served.
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In a cooperative agreement43 with the US National Science Foundation, Network Solutions Incorporated (NSI) of Herndon, Virginia has since 1993 administered the registration of the generic TLDs .com, .net, .org, .gov and .edu. The .mil domain is managed by the US Department of Defense (DOD).44 The remaining ".int", a specialized TLD intended for international treaty organizations will, pending final agreement, be administered by the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva, Switzerland.
As mentioned, the .gov, .edu and .mil domains are restricted to US applicants by allocation policy. This leaves .com, .net, and .org that should be considered as international TLDs (iTLDs).
The NSF and NSI have been struggling to deal with the astronomical growth and commercialization of the Internet. When NSI began domain name registrations in the spring of 1993, approximately 400 domain names were being registered per month. However, in March 1996 (see Figure 1), this had risen to about 45,000 - a 25% growth over February alone. Since the overwhelming percentage were in the ".com" category, the NSF found itself essentially subsidizing commercial registrations which did not fall into its mandate.
acting to this, NSF amended its cooperative agreement with NSI, allowing it to institute a US$ 50 a year charge for domain name registrations from September 14th, 1995.45
Last edited by sarettah at Sep 12 2003, 01:23 PM