 two-letter country code after that-and if you really wanted to get serious about branding, you would probably want to register another 250 each in the .net, .org, and .biz domains! Of course, very few organizations actually do this. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the overall responsibility for managing DNS falls to ICANN. In addition to governing the terms and conditions of the gTLDs with the cooperation of the gTLD registries, ICANN also controls the root domain, delegating control over each TLD to a domain name registry. When it comes to the ccTLDs, the government of a given country typically controls the Internet Addressing and Address Resolution domain registry. Although ICANN may consult with the domain registries, it does not regulate the terms and conditions of how the domain name is allocated or who allocates it within each of the country-level domain registries. The Importance of Domain Names Many new domain names are registered every minute, and it seems that all the sim- ple one- and two-word .com names have already been taken. Therefore, there's a call for new TLDs to be added. Originally IANA, which was funded by the U.S. government, administrated the DNS. From 1993 to 1998, Network Solutions (now part of VeriSign) was the sole provider of direct domain name registration services in the open gTLDs, and registration authority over the ccTLDs was relegated to the individual countries and bodies within them. ICANN, a nonprofit, international corporation, was formed to take over in 1998. ICANN has assumed responsibility for a set of technical functions previously performed under U.S. government contract by IANA and other groups. Specifically, ICANN coordinates the assignment of the following identifiers, which must be glo- bally unique for the Internet to function: Internet domain names IP address numbers IP numbers and TCP/UPD port numbers In addition, ICANN coordinates the stable operation of the Internet's root server system. ICANN has also introduced competition into the administration of the