Nominet plans to release super-short domain names
Going on the same route as other TLDs like .DE, the organization responsible for domain names ending in .UK, Nominet, will release for further registration a mass of new short domains in the third level of .uk domain (under co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk and .net.uk). Nominet will also allow the registration of some formerly banned domain names that consist of two or one characters.
However, Nominet plans to exclude from this new release some domains that have been registered before 1996, date of Nominet’s foundation.Among Nominet’s rules of domain name registration there is a rule that forbids one-character domain names like the part of a domain name that comes before .org.uk or .co.uk. Though a letter and a number combined is allowed, the regulations do not allow the registration of two letters domain names in a lot domains that this organization manages. It seems that these rules are up for a change while Nominet considered wisely running a consultation related to this issue that will end on June 8.
Nominet’s Policy Advisory Body has suggested to operate these changes and released this consultation for users and industry players to respond to the plan. While they are considering operating a first round named “sunrise period” – when only those that hold registered trademarks identical to the name they want to apply for may participate – Nominet is not decided yet on how to deal with this issue since both businesses and people are sharing the same equal rights to do it. They are considering charities and NGOs to have priority for org.uk domains and businesses for co.uk domains; for other domain names where a distinction cannot be applied they are inclining to go for a sealed bid auction that will decide new owners for some particular names.
Domain names that are up for being released are as following:
• All currently reserved one character domains in .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk and .net.uk1
• All currently reserved two letter domains in .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk and .net.uk
• We may also release a series of domain names previously reserved e.g.
• Domain names that use a gTLD at the third level, e.g. biz.org.uk
• Domains that use a Second Level Domain at the third level, e.g. sch.org.uk
However, these are only some examples; a more complete list can be found as Appendix 1 on Nominet website.
On the other hand, for a list of domains registered before 1996, an Appendix 2 is available on the same website. For example, in co.uk – bj, bt, cd; in org.uk – bi and in net.uk – u.
Nominet plans to charge for these domains only enough to cover this procedure’s costs, however if after some auctions extra-money are generated they intend to donate those to a charitable organization named Nominet Trust. Nominet founded this organization for protection and education of children situated in the area of information technology.