.UK Announced

I actually think it's an excellent proposal, especially for someone like me who only owns a few domains anyway. It should have been domain.uk from the start. An auction for each domain name is the fairest way as far as I'm concerned. Of course most people here won't be happy, which is understandable.

 

The potential for public confusion on this is ridiculous. The .uk extension should be a non-starter.

The other ideas in the proposal do have some merit though. It all needs a very carefully considered response me thinks!

 

More confusion... not great for growth

As a business owner I’m more than happy with the current “.co.uk” solution… as Nominet say themselves “.co.uk a great place to be”.

http://www.agreatplacetobe.co.uk/

I see no reason at all to introduce yet another domain extension. Many Internet users and consumers find the online world confusing as it is already… the last thing we all need is more confusion, more opportunity for brand damage, more opportunity for fraudsters to profit. UK business needs to focus on growth and be supported and nurtured in these tough times. More confusion is not the way forward.

I’ve invested heavily in the .co.uk name space promoting the UK and my businesses. If I’m unable to secure “mybusinessname.uk” then this investment will all be for nought. If this change goes ahead and I’m successful in securing the .uk names then I’ll incur significant additional time and money registering, renewing, managing and protecting these extra names… something I could well do without.

I don’t see any real benefit to UK businesses and will be making that point to Nominet.

 

Simon, that's such a fantastic "in a nutshell" summary from a business owner's perspective that I've quoted and bolded it. Hope you don't mind!

 

Blimey more than one thing has changed at Nominet this morning...

I only ever look-up a couple a day...

 

getting the same, it must be a temporary teething problem with the new site.

 

Or a whole new ball game or or should I say ball-park.

 

Sorry, just realised it IS now possible to view the whole thing without taking the survey. See http://www.nominet.org.uk/sites/default/files/Nominet_FINAL_electronic_form1.pdf

 

Looking on the bright side.

The UK market for dot Coms just went up a niche amongst all the uncertainty

 

Do you really think so? I'd have thought actually the market for .org.uk just imploded. .co.uk remains a wash, because in most key markets/niches there are more than 2 competitors and a maximum of 2 can end up with "desirable" extensions. It will be up for debate for years (and probably never fully resolvable) which of .co.uk (very very very strongly branded now) or .uk (shorter and cleaner looking) is more "desirable" but there won't be any room for other also-rans if this goes ahead in ANY form.

Meanwhile, I don't really see the impact on .com - if it's a decent .com domain then the US market already offers much higher potential than the UK does.

The biggest losers of all will be any non-.co.uk/uk/.com extensions, especially the new GTLD which didn't have a hope before and have less-than-a-hope if .uk goes ahead.

 

If nominet charge £20 per year to protect your current webspace it amounts to extortion.

 

.uk because of security and verification?

If they were really interested in achieving the security and verification process, they should be asking for current domain holders to verify their details (perhaps for a small fee) and then award them their 'seal of approval'.

.... problem solved!


It seems that they want to promote the expensive .uk whilst devaluing the .co.uk, .org.uk etc by maintaining that the .uk's will be more 'secure'.

It does also suggest that the way domain registration in the UK has taken place over the years has been mismanaged by Nominet and this .uk idea is a way of painting over the cracks... at great profit to themselves!

 

I know, are they saying .co.uk is not safe and secure at present?

Marketing bullshit is what it is.

 

This isn't really true. Amazon will be well aware and will outbid any person that attempts to compete for it.

I would prefer it to be launched as a some what 'exclusive' club for those which deserve it - ie: Those who are committed to security, excellent online practices, etc. In the same way there is NHS.uk, I could imagine there being boots.uk, ebuyer.uk, amazon.uk etc. It could be a true mark of a quality site which would serve as a goal for many online businesses. However drawing the line would be a problem. Anyway, just thinking out loud here.

 

If they are saying .uk is more secure than .co.uk doesn't this amount to some form of negligence ?

 

If they don't let existing .co.uk owners have first call, then they will create a bizarre situation that will leave many small businesses out of pocket and suspicious of the UK namespace.

Why should a small accountancy firm, for instance, go into a public auction against people with deep pockets, who only want the name to sell to the .co.uk owner at some point in the future?

.COM will win out of this.

 

Does this mean we can expect names like...

#####.uk
#####uk.uk
#####.co.uk
#####uk.co.uk
#####uk.com
#####.org.uk
#####uk.org.uk
etc, etc ?
What a mess!

 

It certainly can't be messed with at the Registry level like this proposal.

One up for .com

 

I don't see anything technical linked to these proposals.
It's very simple, it's like bovis selling you a detached house and later building a house attached to it.
The me.uk and org.uk were issued for different reasons, personal and non profit. This is simply issuing a suffix to directly compete with the co.uk.
First dibs is a way of softening the blow but even then there will be unnecessary costs and management.

 

I did only mention .com.

As others have said - stability counts.