UK asks for shorter internet domain

English firms may have shorter internet domain names with added security measures, after a proposal by Nominet, the BBC reported.

With the new scheme, companies' sites will could end with “.uk” and not with “.co.uk”. However, the change is an option, not mandatory for all businesses, and applicants would have to prove they had UK presence and pay a higher fee.

Nominet's director of operations, Eleanor Bradley, said the new addresses would be sold at a wholesale price of about £20 per domain a year. The current domain has a fee of £5 for two years.

Besides, to avoid cybercrime, the service is expected to include new security features. "We would do daily malware scanning of these domain names and associated sites and they would be DNSSEC-signed [Domain Name System Security Extensions]”, she explained.

She stressed that the idea was "not a money marking exercise" and that additional earnings would be passed onto an independent trust to invest in improving internet access and security.

Nominate's three-month consultation will be running until 7 January, and more information can be found on its website. In addition, it offers registered companies the chance to use plc.uk, sch.uk, cltd.uk or net.uk as alternatives.

On 13 June, ICANN revealed 1,900 new domains, and Nominates was one of the bodies that decided to secure suffixes like .wales or ..cymru. Also Samsung, Coca-Cola, Kellogg and Google, requested dozens of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) name strings, such as .new, .dad, .and, .art, .book, .play, .shop and .vip.