Existing .uk domain owners upset about plans for second level domains.
Earlier this month I reported about .uk registry Nominet and its plan to release second level .uk domains.
As of right now you can only register third level .uk domains, such as domain.co.uk. The plan is to allow domains such as domain.uk to be registered.
Domains.uk may well be a superior domain, but this isn’t sitting well with current registrants of third level .uk domains.
In fact, Nominet’s plan to charge more for the domains and offer them with a suite of products may complicate matters. If .uk domains come with security tools that ultimately make them more trustworthy, it could damage firms that don’t opt for the upgrade.
Worse, it’s not as simple as opting to get the second level equivalent of your third level domain. Just because you own domain.co.uk right now doesn’t mean you’ll get domain.uk.
Although many people are upset, I think Edwin Hayward has done the best job of researching and explaining the issue. His 26 page position paper explains the problems with Nominet’s plan and backs it up with data and comparisons to other countries that have belatedly offered second level domain names.
You can read more at mydomainnames.co.uk.
I think, it is a good idea. .UK is shorter than .CO.UK. It also opens a lot of opportunities for those who missed the registration of .co.uk.
@Furkat
Yes, uk is superior, but in business it’s not always what was better, but what was first. For this to work, owners of co.uk should have first crack to get their brands in dot-uk, but that’s not going to happen. This is going to become Litigation City in a heartbeat.
I agree with David, on top of all, Nominet auctioned off the L & LL.co.uk domains only a year ago and is now moving ahead to destroy its value. Seems like Nominet wants to be in line with others to create more confusion in the DN-space.
Nominet have spent more than a decade building up .co.uk .org.uk. and .me.uk They could have chosen .uk from the start but obviously liked the idea of splitting the .uk space this way. They got many more domains registered and that created a much larger revenue.
Businesses have been buying and selling .co.uk domains spending vast sums of money for many years yet they get no protection under these new proposals. Nominet not only knew about this aftermarket in .co.uk domains – they positively encouraged it. In Sept 2011 they arranged their very own auction of two letter .co.uk domains. Open to all, the auction raised over £3m. A number of these domains were sold to overseas buyers. Quite what they think about Nominet’s sudden turnaround beggars belief. What sort of advert does this send to the rest of the world about investing in the UK? These overseas buyers are also excluded from any chance of investing in the shorter .uk domain. I know of US and Australian buyers who have also purchased descriptive .co.uk domains spending tens of thousands of pounds on them. It’s nothing short of scandalous.
Perhaps nominet will offer all ‘winners’ of that ill fated auction in Sept 2011 their money back. But with nominet’s track record I wouldn’t bank on it. I can see a lot of litigation coming nominet’s way in the years to come if this greedy plan gets the go-ahead.
DNW: Thanks for giving this some additional exposure.
It really is a debacle. Unconscionable is the word that comes to mind for me. Also, bad faith.
Nominet seem so cynically commercial at the expense of the rights of existing registrants. Seems extraordinarily ironic given that, I thought, TAG holders controlled Nominet. I don’t get it at all.
@Furkat (above) reminds of one of those people who email you and say “you are not using the domain, can I have it, I am student, with no money”.
I have 150+ .co.uk domains so this is bad news for me. However, I don’t see these proposals being put to practice without some serious reforms. It is simply scandalous.
If they do go ahead I’m going to make the most of it. The UK domain market is of course a lot less competitive than for example .com and good names will be for the picking. I best start saving now.
I think that it surely can’t go ahead simply because of the amount of litigation it’s going to open.
If company X has spent years and £Thousands building their brand on .co.uk, and someone else gets the .UK then they are riding off the back of the name, brand, reputation, and investment in marketing that company X have built up over years.
That is totally unfair, and will have to end up in court since Nominet will have okayed the UK registrant because of their rules.
I think that could well open the way for some companies to sue Nominet themselves, because it’s clearly visible now what the outcome will be, and they will indeed have acted with gross negligence.
It’s greed on behalf of Nominet, nothing more and nothing less and I hope they wake up and smell the coffee.
Nominet isn’t the first registry to do this. If they launch a decent grandfathering system, I think there shouldn’t be any issues.
Since Nominet auctioned off LL.co.uks’ a year ago they should take that into consideration and allow the holders of those 3rd level domains to acquire the 2nd level free of charge.