InterNIC

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InterNIC, short for Internet Network Information Center, was a project created in the 1990s to coordinate how domain names are registered and how information about the Internet is organized. It handled DNS domain name registrations and information services for non-military users and was accessed via internic.net.

InterNIC was run by three partners: Network Solutions handled domain name registrations, AT&T managed directory and database services, and General Atomics provided information services. In 1994 General Atomics was removed from the contract, and AT&T took over those duties.

The idea behind InterNIC built on earlier work from the NIC, the first central authority for network coordination at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). The NIC began in 1972 under Elizabeth J. Feinler (Jake) and helped publish the numbers assigned by IANA and maintain reference information for the growing network. The NIC also kept a directory of people, a services handbook, and guidelines for how the network operated, and it distributed RFCs.

Over time, the NIC’s operations shifted. In 1991 the NIC’s services moved from SRI to Government Systems, Inc. (GSI) in Virginia. In 1993, NSF created InterNIC to extend and coordinate directory and information services and to provide non-military registration. The InterNIC arrangement split responsibilities among Network Solutions (registrations), AT&T (directory/database), and General Atomics (information services).

In the late 1990s, IP number management moved to a new body, ARIN, and the InterNIC directory services were phased out. In 1998, IANA and the InterNIC project were reorganized under ICANN, which took over many Internet coordination tasks and opened DNS operations to competition. Since then ICANN has continued to oversee domain registration information, with the InterNIC legacy site still available for reference. In 2011, the management of the in-addr.arpa DNS zone was transferred to ICANN as well.