Domains were really expensive back then. IIRC, $35 per year, with a minimum of 2 years.

I think it priced the speculators out of the market.

In the early days, and I don't recall if 1994 was within this range, domains were free. You filled out the email form and sent it off. If you had a valid handle (remember those? Two initials and your duplicate count?), and nobody else had the domain spoken for, it was yours.

This is why we old timers kick ourselves over skipping the land rush.

In 1994, .com domains were free. They didn't charge for .com domains until several years after this.

When they changed to a fee-based model, Network Solutions inherited the mgmt contract from InterNIC and charged $50/yr at first and then lowered the price to $35 (which then was lowered again when multiple registrars were allowed access to the NIC db).

I missed the chance to grab steve.org, which was free at the time I first checked. A short while later I grabbed steve.org.uk which I used everafter - and it cost me $75 for the registration at that time, via register.com

Wouldn't they just take it from you if you haven't had business associated with it? By take I mean sue you.

The law was very unclear at the time, so it was hard to say just what would happen.

There was this general consensus on the net (definitely not universal) that you ought to have a legitimate use for the name, so if your name was Bob McDonald you might have a claim to mcdonalds.com. This consensus eventually became mostly encoded into law.

I'm thinking more business.com than mcdonalds.com - the OP got McDonalds to donate something to charity, but I imagine if he'd tried to profit from it he might have found McJane on the end of a McLawsuit.

Sure, but it's cheaper to settle than to go to court. Even if it cost me $70 for the domain, I'd happily let it go for $5,000.