The Name

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Infringing Third Party Rights

How to use WHOIS

Second Level Domains (SLDs)

The .uk country code is separated into sub categories, called Second Level Domains (SLD's). People are encouraged to register a Domain Name within the SLD that corresponds to their type of activity.

The SLDs that are managed by Nominet UK are:

• .co.uk for commercial enterprises (the largest SLD in the UK)
   
• .me.uk for personal domains
   
• .org.uk for non-commercial organisations
   
• .plc.uk and .ltd.uk for registered company names only
   
• .net.uk for Internet Service Providers
   
• .sch.uk for schools

The rules for .co.uk and .org.uk registrations allow for a wide, unrestricted variety of names, abbreviations and acronyms to be used. However, the rules for .ltd.uk and .plc.uk registrations require that the Domain Name is the same as the company name that the organisation has registered with Companies House.

The SLDs that are not managed by Nominet UK are:

• .ac.uk for Academic Establishments
   
• .gov.uk for Government Bodies
   
• .nhs.uk for NHS Oganisations
   
• .police.uk for UK Police Forces
   
• .mod.uk for Ministry of Defence Establishments