John Postel

Why He Matters: He is principally known for being the Editor of the RFC document series, and for managing the creation and allocation of Top Level Domains and IP addresses in the pre-ICANN era. Postel was the RFC Editor from 1969 until his passing, and wrote and edited many important RFCs, including RFCs 0791-0793, which define the basic protocols of the Internet protocol suite. Postel served on the Internet Architecture Board and its predecessors for many years. He was the Director of the names and number assignment clearinghouse, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), from its inception. He was the first member of the Internet Society, and was on the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society. He was the original and long-time .us Top-Level Domain administrator. Postel died of complications following heart valve replacement surgery in Los Angeles, on October 16, 1998.

Frank Schilling

Pioneering Domain Investor /Sevenmile.com

Why He Matters: Frank Schilling's bidding and investment activities helped expand the expiring domain name auction houses; and later, other ICANN accredited registrars selling their registry connections as a drop registrar. Frank Schilling patented the "Generic Top Level Domain Rerouting System" in 2001, financed the Caribbean's first ICANN accredited domain name registrar in 2003, joined as a member of the ICANN business constituency and co-founded the non-profit 'Internet Commerce Association' in 2006. He began domain blog Seven Mile in 2007.Frank Schilling was one of the first to administer very large portfolios of domain names for third-parties and is one of the largest generic domain-name investors in the world.

Adam Dicker

Owner, DNForum.com / Go Daddy VP of Domain Name Aftermarket

Why He Matters: Adam Dicker has built a reputation in the Internet community throughout the years by helping people earn more revenue from their domain name investments. Adam Dicker is the owner of the largest domain industry discussion forumNForum.com. Adam purchased his first domain in 1996 and has since become a prominent play in the domain industry. With the knowledge of domains and the power of a highly successful domaining forum under his belt, Adam has recently been hired by Go Daddy as the Vice President of Domain Name Aftermarket.

Russell C. Horowitz

CEO, Marchex / Chairman of the Board Director

Why He Matters: Russell Horowitz is a founding officer, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and Treasurer of Marchex since January 2003. Russell was previously a founder of Go2Net, which he sold for $1.6 billion. Together Russell Horowitz and Marchex have become a leader in delivering vertical and local online traffic to merchants. Marchex offers services like “feed management” that delivers advertiser listings into search engines and shopping engines. It also offers “bid management,” which helps merchants monitor performance-based search advertising on search engines and pay-per-click networks.

Yun Ye

Elusive and successful domain pioneer

Why He Matters: A onetime computer programmer, Yun Ye used his newly developed software in the late 1990’s to amass an infamous domain empire that was ultimately sold to Marchex for an astonishing $164 million. Yun ye, a Chinese citizen who lived at the time in Vancouver, British Columbia, was intensely private and dealt with the Marchex people only under the agreement that they never mention his name. To this day, Marchex execs refer to the deal by the company name Ye adopted for the transaction: Name Development.