Registrations directly under .uk back on the table

At the beginning of this year Nominet (.co.uk-registry) organised a survey amongst its registrars to check how they felt about direct registrations under the .uk domain. Up until now only registrations under the .co.uk, .org.uk, .net.uk and .me.uk domain are possible. The registrars had a lot of critique on the proposal and now Nominet has processed this feedback and offers a revised proposal.

In the original proposal Nominet wanted to give priority to trademark holders so they would be the first who had he possibility to register their trademark directly under the .uk domain. The registrars didn’t agree since certain companies have invested in a .co.uk domain name but they don’t own the same trademark. For instance Kellogs registered the domain name breakfast.co.uk but they didn’t register the trademark ‘breakfast’. If another party would manage breakfast.uk , according to the registrars this would only cause confusion. Nominet now proposes to give the owner of the .co.uk name the first chance to register the same name under the .uk extension. If different persons have registered the same name under the .co.uk, .me.uk or .org.uk domain, the owner of the name which has been registered the earliest will be given priority.

The registrars also had a problem with the strict rules regarding the Whois information the registry wanted to link a .uk registration. The registry wanted to verify all Whois info and even considered to introduce local presence as a necessity to register a .uk domain name. Moreover they also considered linking those strict registration conditions to .co.uk registrations. The registrars didn’t agree because according to them of those rules were implied it would seem that current .co.uk registrations weren’t save at all. Currently there aren’t any restrictions and the Whois info isn’t verified. However the registrars weren’t keen on extra restrictions. The registry took this opinion by heart and states they’ll only ask registrars to send an email to the email address of the owner of the domain name via which he/she needs to confirm whether the owner information is correct. They”ll ask this for both .co.uk and .uk registrations.

With those changes Nominet puts a new proposal on the table regarding direct .uk registrations. A new survey will be held amongst their registrars to see how they feel about this revised proposal.