nominet
Latest
Disney wins duel with fancy dress shop over starwars.co.uk
After owning the domain name starwars.co.uk for the past ten years, a fancy dress retailer in the UK is being forced to relinquish it to Disney. Costumier Jokers' Masquerade has used the domain to point visitors towards its range of licensed Star Wars outfits, but was asked by Disney to hand it over last year. It refused, so Disney, which acquired Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars in 2012, asked UK domain registrar Nominet to step in. Now, following a three-month review, Nominet has ruled that starwars.co.uk, starwars.uk and five other related domains be surrendered.
Nominet proposes more secure .UK domain for British websites
Nominet is considering a .uk internet domain for users who can't bear to type the extra three characters necessary for .co.uk. The body is lobbying for the new domain in time for ICANN's next TLD expansion, which includes new entries like .shop, .play and .home. Nominet has promised tough entry requirements for the system, with only businesses (or persons) that can prove a UK presence being eligible to register. It'll also be around four times more expensive, with the extra charges going to pay for daily malware scanning to prevent domain spoofing and a donation to a trust to improve web security. If you're an interested party, you can offer your tuppence-worth at the organization's official public consultation which runs until January 7th 2013.
