A small – and now famous – company
has registered the 10 millionth .uk domain name for their new
magazine. Nominet, the operator of the registry, has seen
registrations grow at an average rate of 10% per year recently from
the 26,000 in existence in 1996, with the first million mark
achieved in 2000. The UK domain name is now the second most popular
country code suffix in the world after Germany's .de with 15
million registrations.
There are a whole new raft of domains to be launched next year
with the forthcoming announcement in May from ICANN on the list
of applications for the grant of new generic Top-Level Domains. A huge
expansion from the current 22 is expected.
As with all new domain suffixes, this increases the opportunity
for cybersquatters as the variety of naming options increases.
While the megabrands may solve the problem by buying a domain
suffix incorporating their mark, the smaller brand owners will have
to watch for cybersquatters.
Sally Creissen, Library and Information Services Manager
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