Nominet involved in seven gTLD applications

Nominet, the .uk registry, is providing registry services for seven new generic top-level domain applications, according to CEO Lesley Cowley.

Cowley told Nominet’s Annual General Meeting today that five of the applications are for dot-brands, a Nominet spokesperson said.

The identities of the clients are currently protected by non-disclosure agreements.

The other two bids are for .wales and .cymru, which Nominet is applying for with the approval of the Welsh government.

The other big European ccTLD operator to already announce its applications, Austria’s Nic.at, said recently that it has submitted 11 applications, six of which were geographic.

Nominet confirmed for .wales gTLD bid

In another piece of dog-bites-man new gTLD news, .uk registry Nominet has announced that it has been picked by the Welsh government to apply for and run .wales and .cymru.

Wales is a country, and it has a certain degree of political independence from the rest of the UK, but it does not qualify for its own country-code top-level domain.

Nominet said:

We will now begin preparing a formal application to ICANN to establish both .cymru and .wales in the interests of Welsh businesses and consumers. Survey results and stakeholder engagement indicate this pair of TLDs will be the most suitable combination to meet the needs of the whole Welsh community.

It’s Nominet’s first announced new gTLD client win. I think it’s got a pretty good chance of winning the .london bid also.

There was a bit of outrage last year from an organization called dotCYM, which campaigned for .cym and then .cymru for a few years, when it appeared that the Welsh government favored .wales.

Cymru is “Wales” in Welsh.

My guess is that .cymru will be launched mainly with local businesses and individuals in mind, while .wales will be used for marketing the country elsewhere in the world.

One-year .co.uk domains will be more expensive

Single-year .co.uk domain name registrations will cost more per year than multi-year registrations, under plans outlined by .uk registry Nominet today.

The registry announced back in November that it intended to loosen up its registration policies to bring them into line with other top-level domains.

From May 1, a one-year .uk domain will have a registry fee of £3.50 ($5.44). The price of a multi-year registration will stay the same as current two-year pricing, at £2.50 (£3.88) per year.

Previously, registrants acquired .uk domains in two-year blocks.

Under the new policy regime, registrations can be for as little as a year or for as many as 10 years. Renewals can be for multiple years, albeit capped at 10 overall.

There was a worry that the changes could lead to more people buying throwaway, abusive or speculative .uk domains. A higher fee could go a little way to offset that.

London issues .london RFP through Olympic bid system

London & Partners, the official promotional agency for London, has released a request for proposals for a registry to apply for and run .london as a new top-level domain.

Bidders will have to sign up for CompeteFor, an online procurement tool designed primarily for the London 2012 Olympics, in order to submit their proposals.

UK-based registries Nominet and CentralNic have already said they plan to respond to the RFP, but L&P says that it is open to companies anywhere, not only in the UK and EU.

The RFP is open until January 5 at noon GMT.

Nominet approves .judiciary.uk

Nominet has approved a request to clutter up the second level under .uk with another government-oriented domain, .judiciary.uk, bringing the total number of SLDs to 15.

As you may know, the UK equivalent of .com is .co.uk, but there are other suffixes such as .org.uk, .me.uk, .plc.uk, .ltd.uk and .net.uk, each with varying restrictions.

There are also several SLDs reserved for public sector use: .gov.uk, .police.uk, .nhs.uk (National Health Service), .sch.uk (schools), .ac.uk (universities) .mod.uk (Ministry of Defence) and .parliament.uk.

The new .judiciary.uk will of course be closed, restricted to the institutions of the UK judiciary. Nominet is proposing to migrate affected registrants from their existing .gov.uk domains.

“Creating judiciary.uk will ensure that the domain name reflects the judiciary’s independence from government, as enshrined in the Constitutional Reform Act, 2005,” Nominet said.

The request was made by the Judicial Office and the Cabinet Office and “due to the unique nature of the request” did not follow the usual Nominet policy for SLD creation.