All Internet traffic starts with Network Solutions Inc. (www. netsol.com), a little-known Herndon, Va. company responsible for registering and maintaining the master list of Web addresses such as "www.yahoo.com," also known as domain names.

Since 1993, the company has held an exclusive contract with the U.S. government to administer domain names ending in .com, .org, .net, and .edu. The company's database holds 3.4 million such addresses. At one time each three-letter suffix actually meant something: only commercial businesses, for example, could register a .com address, only nonprofits an .org address, and computer networking firms a .net address.

But today it's a free-for-all. "The lines have blurred," said Network Solutions spokeswoman Cheryl Regan. "Nowadays we encourage people to register all three to protect themselves." Just one hard rule remains: Only accredited educational institutions can end their names with .edu.

Names ending in .com are the ones that have turned into .$$$ on the Internet -- fetching as much as $3.3 million in one case. The three magic letters account for 84 percent of the registered addresses, Reagan said.

The .net and .org domains together account for roughly 15 percent of registrations, while .edu names amount to one percent or less.

But the dominance of .com-- and Network Solutions -- may not last forever. The company's monopoly on domain names ends next year. Various Internet organizations are hammering out a plan to open up the registration process to other companies and add more suffixes to the mix. Two popular alternatives for businesses are .firm and .store. The question is whether Web surfers will remember them.

Pub Date: 03/08/99