INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNET DOMAIN NAME

What is the meaning of Domain Name?

A domain name is an identification label that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet, based on the Domain Name System (DNS).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name

A name that identifies one or more IP addresses. For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html, the domain name is pcwebopedia.com. Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. For example:

source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/domain_name.html

The internet relies on an addressing system much like the postal service to send data and information to a computer at a specific destination. An IP address, short for Internet Protocol address, is a number that uniquely identifies each computer or device connected to the internet. The IP address usually consists of four groups of numbers, each separated by a period. The number in each group is between 0 and 255. For example, the numbers 72.14.207.99 are an IP address. In general, the first portion of each IP address identifies the network and the last portion identifies the specific computer. These all numeric IP address are difficult to remember and use. Thus, the internet supports the use of a text name that represents one or more IP addresses. A domain name is the text version of an IP address. As with an IP address, the components of a domain name are separated by periods.

Base on the definitions above, we can conclude that, Domain Name is about an identity on the particular matter and person in the cyber space. The owner of the Domain Name has rights, power or authority regarding to his/her Domain Name. However, the owner of the Domain Name did not have an exclusive rights, but still subject to the some conditions and rules in the cyber space.