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Nominet to offer second level .uk domain names, with .co.uk owner getting priority

by — Services 5 Comments

Major shift coming to .uk namespace.

NominetNominet has approved a controversial program to offer second level .uk domain names, but has drastically changed the program from the first draft.

Under the approved plan, second level .uk domain names (e.g. example.uk) will be available for registration at a wholesale price of £3.50 for single year registrations and £2.50 for multi-year registrations.

Owners of existing third level .co.uk domain names will get first rights to the matching second level .uk domain names. Nominet will reserve the equivalent second level domain name for five years. The .co.uk domain owner can claim the matching second level domain name at any time during this period. The right is with the domain name, not the current registrant, so the right is transferable if a domain name changes hands.

To prevent gaming, this only applies to .co.uk domain names that were registered as of 11:59 pm on October 28, 2013.

Registrants of .org.uk and other third level domain names will not get secondary rights to the .uk domain name if the .co.uk registrant doesn’t opt to register the domain name. However, if no matching .co.uk was registered as of October 28, then the first right goes to the .org.uk owner.

93% of third level .uk domain names are .co.uk domain names, according to Nominet. In only 4% of cases is a third level domain registered under more than one second level .uk domain name.

The original second level proposal by Nominet didn’t give priority to current third level .uk nameholders, and also proposed a wholesale price of £20 per year.

Although I suspect many .co.uk owners will opt to register the shorter .uk domain names, it will be interesting to see what they do with them. Changing to the second level domain will be like moving your site to an entirely different domain name in the eyes of Google. That’s not easy and has search engine repercussions. Perhaps Google will design a system to make it easier for customers to make the transition. Otherwise, .co.uk owners might want to just forward the shorter domain to their existing .co.uk domain.

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People who paid a lot for one letter .uk domains could lose out under new plan

by — Policy & Law 7 Comments

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.

Nominet reconsiders second level .uk domains (and it may be good for domainers)

by — Policy & Law 20 Comments

New plan gives rights to existing domain registrants and offers lower pricing.

Nominet, the registry behind the .uk namespace for the United Kingdom, has put forth a new plan to offer second level domains to the public. Currently, registrations are only available at the third level.

The group’s previous proposal to offer domains such as example.uk instead of example.co.uk was shelved in February after a number of stakeholders lodged complaints about the program.

The earlier proposal wouldn’t have given priority to existing third level .uk domain holders. It also had a planned wholesale cost of £20 per domain per year, which is about ten times the cost of a third level registration.

The new plan, now open to community feedback, would give priority to the owner of a third level domain. If you own example.co.uk, .org.uk, etc. you’d get first dibs on example.uk. In the event that more than one of the same third level domains are registered (example.co.uk and example.org.uk), the holder of the oldest registered domain of the string would have senior rights.

Also, the price will be about £5.

This still places a burden on existing domain registrants, especially those with large portfolios. But it may strengthen the overall value of the .uk namespace, which will help domain investors that own .uk domains.

I don’t own any .uk domains, so I’m curious to hear from those that will be affected if this proposal becomes reality.

Nominet shelves plan for shorter .uk domain names (for now)

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

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.

Backlash rising against second level .uk domains

by — Policy & Law 10 Comments

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.



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