No second level registrations — for now.
.UK registry Nominet has delayed approving its own proposal for offer second level domain names.
The proposal would have allowed people to register domain names at the second level (e.g. name.uk) instead of the existing third level requirement (e.g. name.co.uk).
That concerned existing registrants of third level domain names, who wouldn’t necessarily be first in line to get the second level equivalent of their third level domains. With wholesale pricing of £20 per year — nearly ten times how much the registry charges for third level domains — it all seemed like a big money grab.
Although the board didn’t approve the shorter domains at its meeting yesterday, .uk domain owners aren’t out of the woods yet.
The board is still researching ways to bring the program to fruition. It wants to explore ways to give some sort of priority to existing third level registrants and consider rolling out some of the features it planned to add to second level domains to the third level. Given the amount of money the registry can make, I don’t think it will let the idea die easily.
The board plans to review its progress at its June meeting.
Congratulations people!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you, to all the people in the UK that worked hard on this. Sincerely, thank you.
I used to respect Nominet. Their organisational model. Seemingly well run. Great service culture dealing with them.
It is inconceivable to me that they could have been so out of touch with their stockholders and, I think, their charter. The proposal was just so unfair, so obviously skewed by commercialism, so misleadingly pitched under the guise of additional security.
Not out of the words yet, but a lot of people (me included) have hopefully saved a lot on unnecessary auctions and legal fees.
Did I say thank you to UK domain pros who worked on this? Thank you!!!!!!
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Over the coming months, this work will explore:
* A revised phased release mechanism based largely on the prior registrations of domains in existing third levels within .uk and in which contention between different applicants for the same domain name should be reduced or eliminated.
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