The domain was originally administered by the United States Department of Defense, but is today operated by Verisign, and remains under ultimate jurisdiction of U.S.

[6] It has grown into the largest top-level domain,[7] and has lent its name to the dot-com bubble, the era of the late 1990s during which excessive speculation in Internet-related concepts and companies led to rapid growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.

SRI created DDN-NIC, also known as SRI-NIC, or simply the NIC (Network Information Center),[9] then accessible online with the domain name nic.ddn.mil.

Beginning October 1, 1991, an operations contract was awarded to Government Systems Inc. (GSI), which sub-contracted it to Network Solutions Inc.

[10] On January 1, 1993, the National Science Foundation assumed responsibility of maintenance, as com was primarily being used for non-defense interests.

In 1995, the NSF authorized NSI to begin charging registrants an annual fee for the first time since the domain's inception.

The introduction of domain biz in 2001, which was aimed at companies that failed to register a suitable com-domain name, intended to make customers realize that they had arrived at a legitimate business website, although it did not achieve widespread use.