Nominet announces programme for evolving the .uk domain name space

[simondooner]

Following Nominet's Rules… all in good faith

If you run any business based in the UK you’ll be familiar with the plethora of rules and regulations laid down by organisations like the Inland Revenue, Companies House, the Health & Safety Executive and even Nominet. You’ll also understand that you flaunt these rules at your peril.

Over the years I have invested heavily in the UK domain space and have built businesses on the back of .co.uk.

My selection of domain extension has always been carried out in accordance with Nominet’s rules, in good faith (see Rules extract below). It’s cost me a lot more in time and money to acquire the .co.uk extensions over the same name .org.uk or .me.uk but hey, those are the rules.

I also suspect that the roaring success of .co.uk (93% of all 10 million plus UK domains) has in no small part been down to a similar interpretation of Nominet’s Rules by other business owners… quoting from Nominet about .co.uk “… it says we do business in the UK”.

How can Nominet now propose a new .uk extension for business but potentially give priority to personal names and not-for-profit entities? This is utter madness and could destroy many UK businesses. The competitiveness of the UK economy will be degraded as a result, jobs will be lost, businesses will close.

The UK’s commercial domain space has already been sold, it can’t be sold a second time.


Extract from Nominet’s Rules

6. Appendix A

co.uk - Commercial entities and purposes
me.uk – Personal names
org.uk - Not-for-profit entities

 

[grantw]

Extract from Nominet’s Rules

6. Appendix A

co.uk - Commercial entities and purposes
me.uk – Personal names
org.uk - Not-for-profit entities

These are intended usages though, not strict rules or the law. Because they're not the law a lot of people have interpreted them a different way and built businesses on .org.uk/.me.uk domains.

I get what you're saying but it works both ways. You can use any of these 3 extensions for a business website and because Nominet have allowed it I think they'd struggle to justify why a business running on any of the latter 2 didn't have any rights to the .uk.

Don't get me wrong, I think the whole things a load of nonesense, just playing devils advocate!

Grant

 

[Edwin]

As has been mentioned, Nominet explicitly have a "we WILL look the other way" policy on .org.uk domains.
http://www.nominet.org.uk/uk-domain-names/registering-uk-domain/choosing-domain-name/rules

4.4 We do not impose restrictions on your status as applicant for the registration of a Domain Name in the following SLDs ("Open SLDs"):

4.4.1 .co.uk; or
4.4.2 .org.uk.

In the SLD Charter of the SLD Rules for the Open SLDs we do set out certain intentions regarding the class of applicant or use of registrations of the Domain Name which we assume you will comply with when applying for a registration of a Domain Name within an Open SLD. However, we do not forbid applications, and will take no action in respect of registrations that do not comply with the SLD Charters. We may request certain information from you regarding your legal identity when you make an application for or seek to amend the registration of a Domain Name in the Open SLDs.

However, .me.uk domains are a different story. They're not included in 4.4 but fall under 4.5 and have additional rules relating to their registration and use. There is some "fiddle factor" wriggle room surrounding very old .me.uk domains, registered before the Rules were redrafted and tightened:

9.5 Transitional Arrangements

As a transitional measure, any .me.uk domain name registered before 25 October 2004 will not be subject to Rules 9.2 and 9.3 until it is next transferred or cancelled.

Given the above, a formula that was something like:

The oldest of
A) .co.uk
B) .org.uk
C) .me.uk (if registered before 25 October 2004 and not transferred since then)
gets the .uk

would seem to be the closest way of mapping Nominet's "Rules" document to the proposed release mechanism for .uk.

 

[grantw]

Do you not think that would give them the legal and moral right to say, we told you it was for not-for-profit and the choice was yours whether to use it against our rules but as such you have no rights to an extension intended for commercial use?

As far as I can see the only way the rules we're discussing can be broken is if a .me.uk is registered to a non-individual entity. There are no usage rules/laws, just an intended purpose which isn't enforced. Everything else is just rules relating to which entities can be used as a legal registrant for each extension, again with no restriction on the actual usage of the domain once it's been registered.

Legally I don't think they'd have any right to say what you're suggesting.

Grant

 

[Skinner]

This is a kinda pointless debate, we must be on lsd or something.

Lets say fly.org.uk was registered before fly.co.uk, it would instantly put fly.org.uk to a high xx,xxx valuation maybe even xxx,xxx but the economy isn't what it was. Now do you think nominet is NOT going to want a slice of that massive wedge of cash its moving about on its ledger ?

They will quite possibly auction off the .uk with only the relevant parties invited (i.e. .*.uk owners).

£50m is nice, but £300,000,000 is better.

 

[grantw]

Not given that they've stated that .uk is intended for commercial use?

I doubt it, they say it's intended for commercial use but they don't put any restriction on which entities can register them or what they can be used for. I'm sure there will be quite a few .co.uk domains registered to charities that are used for charity websites.

Grant

 

[Retired_Member38]

Can we put this 'you're breaking the rules' stuff to bed now?

Email to Nominet:

Hello,

I am interested in setting up a little business that I can run from home in my spare time and I have a domain question that I hope you can help me with.

I found a domain I would like to set my shop up on, but the .co.uk is taken already. I emailed the owner and he doesn't want to sell it to me. The .org.uk is free to register, can I buy this and run my business from it? It is a generic word, it doesn't infringe on any trademarks etc.

I realise .org.uk is 'intended for' non profit uses. But is there anything actually stopping me running a commercial site from it, as the domain I have found would be excellent for my business idea.

Thanks,

Reply:

Thank you for your email.

Although there are guidelines to indicate that .org.uk should be used by not for profit companies or charities, there are no rules against them being used by commercial interests.

If you have any questions please do contact me on 01865 332244, or by email to [email protected]

Kind regards

xxxxx


xxxxxx
Customer Services
T +44 (0) 1865 332244
F +44 (0) 1865 332288

Nominet UK is a company limited by guarantee and registered in England under No. 3203859. Our registered office is Minerva House, Edmund Halley Road, Oxford Science Park, Oxford, OX4 4DQ, England.
www.nominet.org.uk

 

[newguy]

This is a kinda pointless debate, we must be on lsd or something.

Lets say fly.org.uk was registered before fly.co.uk, it would instantly put fly.org.uk to a high xx,xxx valuation maybe even xxx,xxx but the economy isn't what it was. Now do you think nominet is NOT going to want a slice of that massive wedge of cash its moving about on its ledger ?

They will quite possibly auction off the .uk with only the relevant parties invited (i.e. .*.uk owners).

£50m is nice, but £300,000,000 is better.

To be honest, this would probably be the fairest approach. At least then people with a successful business on an extension are more likely to get their hands on the .uk too. It's still a giant con, because introducing .uk is wholly unnecessary to begin with.

 

[Stephen]

Office of Fair Trading

Can we put this 'you're breaking the rules' stuff to bed now?

Just one further point on this area, as it has been raised here so many times.

There is no rule at Nominet as you have pointed out with "there are no rules against them being used by commercial interests".

However there are other organizations, rules and laws in the UK to contend with for "misleading and deceptive conduct" especially with the office of fair trading.

Nominet clearly states for .org.uk at agreaplacetobe.co.uk:

.org.uk :The non-commercial domain choice for charities, community groups, public service, professional institutions, not for profit and third sector organisations.

Anybody using a .org.uk website, might therefore assume any orgainization was providing unbiased not-for-profit information.

Maybe Nominet need to improve there communication to the public before they get into trouble?

 

[Retired_Member38]

Just one further point on this area, as it has been raised here so many times.

There is no rule at Nominet as you have pointed out with "there are no rules against them being used by commercial interests".

However there are other organizations, rules and laws in the UK to contend with for "misleading and deceptive conduct" especially with the office of fair trading.

Nominet clearly states for .org.uk at agreaplacetobe.co.uk:


Anybody using a .org.uk website, might therefore assume any orgainization was providing unbiased not-for-profit information.

Maybe Nominet need to improve there communication to the public before they get into trouble?

Its irrelevant what is stated on agreatplacetobe - I didn't buy my domains from there. In fact it wasn't even registered when I bought them.

The other laws and regulations apply to .co.uk too - pretend you're a charity on a .co.uk and you're going to be in trouble. Put a clearly commercial site on a .org.uk and if a small number of idiots somehow think its a charity, that is not your fault and you don't need to do anything about it.

 

[mojoco]

Its irrelevant what is stated on agreatplacetobe - I didn't buy my domains from there. In fact it wasn't even registered when I bought them.

The other laws and regulations apply to .co.uk too - pretend you're a charity on a .co.uk and you're going to be in trouble. Put a clearly commercial site on a .org.uk and if a small number of idiots somehow think its a charity, that is not your fault and you don't need to do anything about it.

I can't recall the exact detail, but I'm fairly sure the OFT have made it clear that they will not tolerate commercial sites in the finance sector, on a .org.uk because the use of .org.uk is deemed misleading.

 

[bb99]

I can't recall the exact detail, but I'm fairly sure the OFT have made it clear that they will not tolerate commercial sites in the finance sector, on a .org.uk because the use of .org.uk is deemed misleading.

I recall reading a consultation document which talked about this a year or so ago but I've no idea where it ended up or whether anything was decided as a result.

 

[AssetDomains]

I can't recall the exact detail, but I'm fairly sure the OFT have made it clear that they will not tolerate commercial sites in the finance sector, on a .org.uk because the use of .org.uk is deemed misleading.

I read something like that here

http://performancein.com/forums/domains-websites-sale/200858-org-org-uk-finance-domains-warning.html

 

[Retired_Member38]

And its completely wrong. Lots of people have org.uk's listed on their CCL's. I'm not sure if that was a deliberate scare tactic being put out by someone to lower the price of decent emds

 

[GreyWing]

I just called them, there are some but they won't issue any since a change in policy in 2008. So if not licensed already, they won't now issue one to trade on it.

Homecredit.Org.Uk is licensed for example. Was news to me, I didn't think there were any, except financial charity debt type sites.

 

[Retired_Member38]

I'm looking at one right now that was added to a CCL at the end of 2009.

I realise this isn't the OFT... but the MOJ have absolutely no problem with licensing .org.uk's. I had them add one of my .org.uks this year.

 

[GreyWing]

I'm looking at one right now that was added to a CCL at the end of 2009.

I realise this isn't the OFT... but the MOJ have absolutely no problem with licensing .org.uk's. I had them add one of my .org.uks this year.

I'm just going off what they said over the phone mate. I genuinely didn't think there were any at all to be honest.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Will pm you the url in a minute. There is no way to search for partial trading names in the CCL lookup, so no way to easily find them all and compare dates. Wouldn't surprise me though if they took a decision in 2008 then more than a year to implement it, they are a gov depertment after all

 

[Jamie101]

Nominee tweeted me earlier to ask for feedback (probably because I was tweeting about it yesterday):

https://twitter.com/nominet/status/347633880750227456

Didn't expect that but I suppose it's all about PR.

 

[GreyWing]

Will pm you the url in a minute. There is no way to search for partial trading names in the CCL lookup, so no way to easily find them all and compare dates. Wouldn't surprise me though if they took a decision in 2008 then more than a year to implement it, they are a gov depertment after all

They told me to *.org.uk on trading names. There search portal is a nightmare mate.