In the field of computer sciences and technology, understanding the basics of internet communication is vital. One of these basics are domain names, and more specifically, top-level domains (TLDs). To understand the inquiry about the “HOTMAIL” top-level domain, we should start by clarifying what a TLD is.
In a URL, the TLD is the part of the domain name that follows after the last dot, such as .com, .org, .net, etc. For instance, in the URL www.google.com, “.com” is the TLD (Managing Your Domain Names, n.d., GoDaddy). There are hundreds of TLDs available, ranging from country-code TLDs like .uk for the United Kingdom or .ca for Canada, to generic TLDs like .com, .net, .edu, to specialty TLDs such as .travel or .museum (Top Level Domains, 2020, W3schools). The TLDs are regulated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The TLD does not include “hotmail” or any other specific website or email provider. “Hotmail”, now known as Outlook after Microsoft’s acquisition in 1997, is part of the second-level domain. To illustrate this, if we have an email account such as example@hotmail.com, “hotmail” is the second-level domain and “.com” is the top-level domain. The whole “hotmail.com” structure forms a registered domain under the top-level domain of “.com” (What is a TLD (Top-Level Domain)?, 2020, Cloudflare).
Hotmail, or now Outlook, does not have its own TLD. Instead, it functions under the “.com” TLD offering services to users around the globe. It was one of the first webmail services and was founded in 1996 by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia, before Microsoft acquired it in 1997 (Reimer, 2012, Ars Technica). It was the pioneering free web-based email service that was later transformed into Outlook.
To conclude, the term “hotmail” is not a top-level domain. It is part of the domain name found at the second level of the URL structure. In the modern world of evolving TLDs, this structure remains constant: second-level domains, like “hotmail”, lie directly below top-level domains, such as “.com”, in the DNS hierarchy.
Sources:
- GoDaddy. (n.d.). Managing Your Domain Names. Retrieved May 5, 2021, from https://www.godaddy.com/help/managing-your-domain-names-4164
- W3schools. (2020). Top Level Domains. Retrieved May 5, 2021, from https://www.w3schools.com/whatis/whatis\_tld.asp
- Cloudflare. (2020). What is a TLD (Top-Level Domain)?. Retrieved May 5, 2021, from https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/glossary/top-level-domain/
- Reimer, J. (2012). Hotmail: The little email engine that could. Ars Technica. Retrieved May 5, 2021, from https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/hotmail-the-little-email-engine-that-could/
