Nominet the company that runs the .UK ccTLD on behalf of the United Kindom announced today that it was going ahead with its controversial plan to domain go launch the shorter .uk domain name not only to compete with all the thousands of new gTLD’s but to bring the UK into line with other European countries such as France (.fr), Germany (.de) and Ireland (.ie)
Nominet existing .uk customers will be offered first refusal of the shorter equivalent of their current address, with five years to decide whether they want to use it in addition to, or instead of the domain they already have with those holding the .co.uk domain getting preference over those holding other versions like org.uk
Nominet will begin a market marketing push to make sure its customers are ware of the changes and says it will announce a launch date for the service in February 2014.
Nominet says the price for the new domains will remain at £3.50 for a single year registration and £2.50 for multi-year registrations.
Nominet CEO Lesley Cowley is quoting as saying:
“We’re excited to offer the option of a shorter, snappier domain name that we believe will appeal to both our existing customers and the businesses and bloggers of tomorrow.”
According to Nominet a survey of UK business decision makers found that 72% thought direct ‘example.uk’ registrations should be an option, while only 2% thought they shouldn’t.
I’m sure this is a huge relieve to a lot of domain investors in the .Uk as some versions of the new plan had the .Uk domain name going to the oldest registration rather to the .co.uk holder…
