If priority is given to first registration, many .me.uk registrants will be big winners.
Registrants paid big bucks for one and two character .co.uk and .org.uk domain names when .uk registry Nominet auctioned them off a couple years ago. Bidders paid £3m in total.
Under the proposed plan for allocating second level .uk domain names, they could get screwed.
Nominet’s latest plan to release domains such as example.co.uk instead of example.uk would give a first right of refusal to owners of the matching third level string.
While this is better for existing registrants than the old plan that gave no rights to existing third level owners, what happens if more than one of the same string are registered, e.g. example.co.uk and example.org.uk?
Nominet’s proposal is to give priority to the first-registered of the domains.
So if example.org.uk was registered before example.co.uk, then the registrant of example.org.uk would have first rights to example.uk.
Nominet auctioned off one and two letter domains under its various second levels at about the same time. But the registration dates differ. And .me.uk domains are often times the first registered.
Here’s an analysis showing which of the single letters was registered first for each letter:
a.co.uk
b.co.uk
c.co.uk and c.org.uk tied
d.me.uk
e.org.uk
f.me.uk
g.me.uk
h.me.uk
i.co.uk and i.org.uk tied
j.co.uk and j.org.uk tied
k.co.uk and k.org.uk tied
l.me.uk
m.co.uk
n.me.uk
o.me.uk
pmme.uk
q.co.uk
r.me.uk
s.co.uk and s.org.uk tied
t.me.uk
u.net.uk
v.co.uk and v.org.uk tied
w.me.uk
x.me.uk
y.co.uk
z.co.uk
Nominet’s proposal is open for comment. I suspect single letter registrants will be vocal.