By the mid-1990s there was discussion of introduction of more TLDs. Jon Postel, as head of IANA, invited applications from interested parties. In early 1995, Postel created “Draft Postel”, an Internet draft containing the procedures to create new domain name registries and newTLDs. Draft Postel created a number of small committees to approve the newTLDs. Because of the increasing interest, a number of large organizations took over the process under the Internet Society’s umbrella. This second attempt involved setting up a temporary organizationcalled the International Ad HocCommittee (IAHC). On February 4, 1997, the IAHC issued a report ignoring the Draft Postel recommendations and instead recommended the introduction of sevennew TLDs (arts, firm, info, nom,rec, store, and web). However, these proposals were abandoned after the U.S. government intervened.

1995 Since the mid-1990s the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce, including the rise of near instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, Voice over InternetProtocol (VoIP) “phone calls”, two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites. The research and education community continues to develop and use advanced networks such as NSF’s very high speed BackboneNetwork Service (vBNS), Internet2, and National LambdaRail. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1-Gbit/s, 10-Gbit/s, or more. The Internet continues to grow,driven by ever greater amounts of online information and knowledge, commerce, entertainment and social networking.