VeriSign, the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure for the networked world, is hosting today a summit of Internet policymakers, industry leaders and other stakeholders in Washington, D.C., to kick off a celebration of the economic, social and cultural impact of .com.
On March 15, 1985, symbolics.com was the first .com registered in what had yet to be labeled the "world wide web." While it took nearly a decade for the domain -- and the consumer Internet -- to take off, today there are over 80 million .com websites and the domain is a prominent feature of one of our culture's most iconic developments.
While its economic and social impact is undisputed, for the first time the economic impact of .com has been quantified in a new study that found that the domain serves as a platform for $400 billion in annual economic activity. The report, by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), found that the broader Internet economy drives more than $1.5 trillion in global annual economic activity, more than the global sales of medicine, investment in renewable energy, and government investment in R&D, combined. The ITIF estimates that the economic activity flowing across the .com infrastructure is likely to grow to $950 billion in annual revenue by 2020.
The .com domain has defined a generation of innovation and entrepreneurism, serving as the launch pad for a new generation of companies that have transformed communications, commerce, entertainment and more.
For more details check out www.verisign.com