Well, if nothing else, we can finally say that we got the .web domain before GTA6. This week we learned that the .web domain had been added to global DNS servers, and that it will be administered by Verisign, which also administers a bunch of the internetâs generic top-level domains (gTLDs), including .com and .net.

Once you’ve digested this news, you might find yourself wondering why itâs taken this long. After all, the original gTLDsâso-called to distinguish them from country-specific domainsâwere approved in 1984. Those original gTLDs were .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, and .org, with .net being added when they were actually implemented a year later. (Some of these domains still exist, as explored in a study issued by web-monitoring service dns.pizza recently.) Itâs no surprise that .web wasnât included in that first tranche of namesâit wasnât until 1989 that Tim Berners-Lee implemented the idea of a hyperlink-based structure at CERN, and the World Wide Web didnât become worldwide until 1993.

But even so: thatâs at least 33 years that the term âwebâ has been used to refer to the internet. In that period, weâve gotten all sorts of weird and wonderful gTLDs: everything from .guitars and .duck to the aforementioned .pizza. There are so many now that itâs actually difficult to find a definitive number; I mean, look at this whopping list of the things. (Thereâs a gTL;DR joke in here, Iâm sure.)

So there must be a story behind .webâs absence, right? Well, yes. A clue as to the nature of that story is given by Verisignâs announcement: âThe delegation of .web follows the successful resolution of all previous disputes related to the generic top-level domain (gTLD),â it says, concluding curtly that âthe details of [these] are confidential.â

The terms of the disputesâ resolution might be confidential, but the details of the disputes themselves are not. So, before we go any further, a primer on how gTLDs work. We all know how to register a website domainâyou decide on what you want your website to be called, then find a domain registrar and hope that the .com version of that name hasnât already been sold to someone else. But what we call domains in that context are actually subdomainsâin this case, yourwebsite.com is a subdomain of the larger .com domain.

Top-level domains are called that because, well, thatâs what they areâtheyâre not subdomains of anything. So how do you get hold of an actual top-level domain? Technically, IP address allocation, DNS management, and other fundamental aspects of internet functionality are the responsibility of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). However, responsibility for domain namesâand especially the allocation of top-level domains, generic or otherwiseâhas fallen to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit that operates out of LA.

If youâre aware of ICANN, it may well be through its well-publicized domain name auctions. It turns out that if you administer a domain name registry for a top-level domain, you can make bank doling out the subdomains to eager purchasers. This has led to a scramble for new gTLDs, which in turn led to ICANNâs auction process.

OK, but⦠what about .web? It turns out that its existence, or non-existence, dates back to 1997, when it was one of seven new TLDs proposed by a group called the Internet Ad Hoc Committee for inclusion in the expanded set of gTLDs planned by IANAâICANN wasnât founded until the following year. The groupâs proposition was ignored, and .web went onto the ICANN back burner, despite the ongoing attempts of Image Online Design, a company that tried to register and administer the .web domain as far back as 1997.

In 2016, however, all hell broke loose when ICANN auctioned off the .web domain. The fact that there was an auction at all hints at acrimony; the press release announcing the winning bidder explained that the auction was âto resolve contention for .web and .webs,â and that âauction serves as the method of last resort for determining which applicant may operate a gTLD when several entities have applied for the same.â

The auction was hotly contested, with seven companies submitting bids, and on 28 July ICANN issued the aforementioned press release, announcing that the winning bidder, who would be ponying up $135 million to operate .web, was a company called NU DOT CO LLC. (Poor old .webs was less lucrativeâit sold to Vistaprint for the princely sum of $1.)

Youâve doubtless never heard of NU DOT CO, and neither had anyone else. The name suggests it was an off-the-shelf company, and it seems thatâs basically exactly what it was. So where did it get $135 million? The answer, controversially, is âfrom Verisignââyep, the same Verisign that has now, a decade later, finally announced that .web is a goer.

The fact that Verisign submitted its bid via a generic shell company might suggest to readers that the bid wasnât entirely kosherâVerisignâs competitors certainly thought so, and the resultant legal wrangling has been ongoing ever since. One company, in particular, Afillasâsince renamed Altanovoâcontested the auction result, arguing that Verisignâs participation via what was effectively a proxy company broke ICANNâs own rules. The fact that .web was in such strong demand, and that Verisign already administered .com, also attracted the interest of the US Department of Justice, which opened an investigation into Verisign in early 2017; the investigation concluded a year later without filing charges.

These are presumably the âprevious disputesâ to which Verisignâs announcement refers. Their resolution allows Verisign to add .web to its roster of prize gTLDs, and if you think thatâs good news for the company, you better believe that the stock market agrees with you. Cue the Pet Shop Boys!