Nominet UK is the .uk domain registry. It is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. It has 'members' who act as shareholders. Anyone can become a member, but most members are ISPs who are also tagholders (see below).

Unlike the model in other countries, by and large customers wishing to register a domain do not approach Nominet directly, but register the domain via a 'tagholder'. Loosely, this is an organisation with a credit account who have registered a PGP key with Nominet. Nominet also handles dispute resolution for contentious domain names. They have been criticized for siding with larger businesses in these dispute cases, such as the case for game.co.uk and iTunes.co.uk. However, in the case of phone4u.co.uk, they sided with the smaller business.

Nominet manage the following domains:

• .co.uk
• .ltd.uk
• .me.uk
• .net.uk
• .nic.uk
• .org.uk
• .plc.uk
• .sch.uk

See also

• .uk
• UDRP - Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy suggested by ICANN
• InterNIC - The United States counterpart.
• Apple Computer#Trademark dispute with CyberBritain/Benjamin Cohen over "itunes.co.uk" domain - Details of Nominet's ruling for Apple in the dispute of the itunes.co.uk domain.

External link

• Nominet UK web site