CHOOSING A DOMAIN NAME HOW TO REGISTER AFTER REGISTRATION MAKING CHANGES TO YOUR DOMAIN NAME
Stricter controls on SLDs
Although the domain is 'intended' for natural persons, it is not restricted to. This should change. In cases where individuals have registered .co.uk domains which later resemble that of a company who later trade in the UK, the Trademark owner or Company can apply through the DRS for an abusive registration and will usually gain registration of the domain - especially as they usually have the financial power and legal influence to unfairly compete with individuals who have the registration.
I would like to have the proposal that all UK SLDs are set up for specific groups only without exception. Any "for profit" registrations or entities not be allowed to register a .org.uk .co.uk for trading entities (sole traders, .ltd, .plc (TradeMarks included) who are in the UK and MUST show some form of trading) .me.uk for exclusively for Natural Persons with a UK contact address.
Any registration that is clearly made in the wrong SLD would not require a DRS cost, but could be simply reported to Nominet and a no-cost decision is made to cancel the registration after a fair warning. E.g. any .me.uk registered to a trading company. Should this not be so clear cut, then the DRS could be used and charged for.
In cases where a case for an Abusive registration is awarded on a restricted SLD, then the domain should not be Transferred, but either Cancelled or cancelled and placed on a "NOT AVAILABLE" list (e.g. nokia.me.uk where it can be shown the name is not generic or a persons legal name. This could be removed from the NA list if legal proof can be provided. i.e. copy of a birth certificate or similar).
There are many instances where a company name includes the personal name of the founders which can then stop anyone who has had that family name gaining a fair registration, this is especially difficult for names used by very large multinationals. Also for people who have used a name for a long time, but not taken out a trade mark against it as they are not trading under the name, but using it in a non-trading form. i.e. Mr Smith Vs Smith Ltd. OR a Mrs Morgan vs Morgan plc. Companies are able to use the .ltd.uk or .plc.uk SLDs but would rather evict individuals from the .co.uk domain first as they do not value the .ltd.uk or the .plc.uk domains in the marketplace.
There are strict controls on .ac.uk , .police.uk, .gov.uk. This would make it fair for all and could apply to all new and renewed registrations.
This will ensure that there are domains where the trading for profit companies and their lawyers do not have unfair control of the internet, but also do not get hindered from trading fairly either. It would also give non-profit organisations, groups and individuals a dedicated domain where they are not exposed to the problems already inherent in the current setup.
Also, I think that it would be fair that an "abusive registration" should be one where the site does not resolve to a server for a specified period of time, say 30 working days after a formal warning is given. The domain would then automatically be detagged and then made available again. It is not just 'individual' cybersquatters who deliberately block domain names, but businesses too. Some businesses have hundreds of domain names that they do not use - it's not difficult to forward the browsers to their main domain name site if they really need the registration.
This would support the nature of the internet as a place for ALL (companies, groups and individuals) to share their information and have a suitably named 'Virtual Home'.
Dave Bucknall
Oxon, UK.
