British registry Nominet announced that from the upcoming year everyone would be able to register second-level domains with the suffix .uk. It is worth recalling that earlier on only third-level domains were registered in the UK, for instance, example.co.uk or example.org.uk.
Lesley Cowley, CEO of Nominet, explained that the decision was preceded by a long period of consultations and research. In particular, an opinion poll undertaken by the company shown that 72 percent of British business representatives support the idea of second-level domain .uk. The idea was opposed by only two percent. In addition, Cowley pointed out that this step is only logical: «The French and Germans manage to have direct in .fr and .de, so why can’t we do that as well?» she said.
Nominet will take care of the owners of existing domains. Thus, the owner of, for instance, example.co.uk will be given domain example.uk for five-year period for free. And only after this period another person or organization can claim this domain. In case that domains example.co.uk and example.org.uk coexist and belong to different owners, the right to receive free priority reservation will be held by the owner of example.co.uk. Price of the annual registration of second-level domain .uk will be 3,5 British pounds and 2,5 pounds a year when the registration is perennial.
