Names
  Currently controlled by ICANN and IANA - www.iana.org
  ICANN 
    - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. 
    ICANN is responsible for overseeing the decision on the assignment of 
      names, IPs, TCP protocols (TCP, UDP, etc.). 

    Originally under contract with the U.S. govenment. 

  IANA 
    - Internet Assigned Numbers Association - assigns port # to functions. 
      such as FTP, telnet, etc. IANA is a department of ICANN

    It is responsible for implementing the decisions made by ICANN.

    It runs the root name servers - the very top of the DNS hierarchical 
      database. From there responsibility is distributed among public and 
      private institutions caring for the various zones.

  InterNIC
    - From 1978 - late 1998, InterNIC was the governing organization of the
      Internet, now done by ICANN.
   
      Over time run by various institutions involved in the development of 
      the Internet, it it now run/owned by ICANN for historical reasons and 
      as a help page.

  WhoIs
    - Site for looking available and in-use domain names.

  Top level domain categories.

    Originally the Internet was ARPANET (DARPA) and names controlled by U.S. 
      government. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency established as a 
      response to Sputnik

  Original plan for 5 zones.

  COM - Commercial.

  GOV - U.S. and state civilian government.

  MIL - U.S. military. 

  ORG - non-profit organizations.

  EDU - education - accredited higher education sites.
    Originally only 4 year universities.

  ***

  NET - non-profit & usually network related.

  ARPA - special top level id for the actual Internet structure.

  2 letter - Nations.
   Pseudo-official - countries who licenses their domains for commercial use. 
     .to - Tonga  as in go.to
     .tv - Tuvalu 
 
   At one time, states would rent certain domain qualifiers such as IL from
     Israel for Illinois. Currently, most states use the US qualifier :
       www.revenue.state.il.us 
     
  INT - international organization.