Scotland loses as .scot.uk bid is turned down

Scotland may be devolved politically, but it will remain tied to .uk in the virtual world if Nominet has its way

The official registry for UK domain names has rejected an application to create a new second-level domain (SLD), .scot.uk, intended to identify Scottish businesses online.

Non-profit making company ScotNom was the first to apply for a SLD in under the .uk country code. But Nominet's executive appears unwilling to relinquish control of any part of the UK domain, and has recommended that the proposal is rejected in its present form because it "fails to comply with the stated policy in several key areas".

ScotNom, whose members include Cap Gemini, Ernst and Young and Scotsman.com, is requesting that it be allowed to manage the Scottish SLD, with registry operations delegated to Scotland Online. The domains would be priced at £10 for two years for members or £80 for non-members. Membership would be £500 to join and then £100 a year to renew.

Within its application, ScotNom argues "this new SLD would be beneficial to users, or potential users of UK namespace and the Internet community as a whole. In particular, it would be beneficial to Scottish users and those associated with Scotland, or wishing to target the Scottish market."

The application argues there is limited space in .uk, especially .co.uk, and mentions that the .us domain is sub-divided into geographical areas.

The Nominet executive has indicated that the application is more likely to succeed if ScotNom hands over the control of .scot.uk to Nominet, who already controls .co.uk and .org.uk. It is currently claiming that the proposal does not comply with the requirement for a third party registry to "demonstrate it as a suitably neutral and impartial body by a significant number of potential Registrants in the SLD, and that it can comply with the policy."

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