The reason we have second level domains (SLDs)

[Whois-SearchWhois-Search is verified member.]

Yesterday at the Nominet roundtable with invited representatives from the Supreme Court, Cabinet Office, JANET, Royal Household, Police, BCS etc....

Along with discussions around:

• How schools would not get the rights to .uk because they are county based sub-domains (third level)?
• How the government intends to move their sites to www.gov.uk but Nominet would find ways to support those who are not being moved (reserved list)?
• How .ac.uk and .gov.uk domains were excluded from claiming rights to .uk because they are not ran by Nominet (Janet)?

What struck me was:

• People seem to be ignoring the reason why all these organisations need their own SLD in the first place?
  
• Not only that the second level domains are restricted and can only be registered by the organisations requesting them?
  
• You are only going to get a .sch.uk for example if you are a school and have the right information:
  http://www.nominet.org.uk/uk-domain-names/registering-uk-domain/choosing-domain-name/schools
  
• Having different SLDs actually increases the security on those second level domains and gives the general public a SLD to 'trust' in their browser?
  
• Therefore instead of opening up .uk why is Nominet not creating more second level domains and selling those instead?
  What ever happened to the UKSLD policy? http://web.archive.org/web/20130520154708/http://uksld.org.uk/

Also:

In November 2011 Nominet said it was to create .judiciary.uk for example
http://lists.nominet.org.uk/pipermail/nom-announce/2011-November/000459.html

Why doesn't the Supreme Court use "supremecourt.judiciary.uk" instead of http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk ? Or even create them a SLD ".supremecourt.uk ?

Is Nominet really going register or reserve them "supremecourt.uk" and let anyone else register "supreme-court.uk" "suprmec0urt.uk" "supremecourtgov.uk" ?

 

[foz]

I think it's an orderly and logical way of doing things, otherwise we would have had .uk (only) from day one?

 

[Stephen]

rules / sanctions

I would like Nominet to impose rules / sanctions on .org.uk to be used for intended purpose and by qualifying owners and same for .me.uk

same as they do for .sch.uk

I would loose out a few but it is the best thing for the UK namespace and
a side benefit it would open the way for .co.uk to be 100% paired ownership with .uk!