In 1996 the .uk domain name registry was founded. Named Nominet UK, the nonprofit organization has offered the following top level domain extensions in the United Kingdom over the years:
.co.uk, .org.uk, .net.uk, .ltd.uk, .plc.uk, .me.uk, and .sch.uk The Nominet UK registry had registered over 10 million domains (10,301,331) by the end of 2012 – with the annual number of new domains registered tallying at about 2 million per year. According to industry domain data the United Kingdom (Nominet’s primary marketplace) was ranked 4th in overall domains registered behind the United States, China and Germany. By far the most popular top level domain extension registered in the United Kingdom thus far has been the ubiquitous .co.uk. Just a short few weeks ago Nominet launched a new shorter United Kingdom domain to once again add to it’s growth – .uk. The new .uk top level extension has proven very popular for obvious reasons. It is a shorter and more memorable version of the legacy .co.uk and brings the United Kingdom in line with with other countries around the world who have long used a single dot in their top level country code extensions. According to Nominet over 50,000 .uk domains were registered within the first 24 hours of the launch of the new top level domain. There are some very specific rules and regulations which apply to the new .uk domain names as well. Here is a summary of those rules as provided by certified UK domain registrar 34SP.com – a company which has been registering UK domain names for over 14 years. What makes the new .uk domain name different? First and foremost, the new .uk domains are shorter and don’t require that a user type the extra few characters that the legacy.co.uk domain names demanded. The domains are also open to be registered by anyone. There are no restrictions on whether an individual or business actually resides in the United Kingdom in order to obtain a .uk domain. There is an important restriction in place on the .uk domains, however. The new .uk domains are ‘pre-reserved’ if the .co.uk domain has already been registered. This makes sense – as the owner of ‘business.co.uk’ should be given the first right of refusal to register ‘business.uk’. This eliminates a great deal of copyright confusion and makes it easy for the .co.uk registrant to obtain the corresponding .uk domain extension for their business or website. The .uk domains are therefore pre-reserved for a period of five years from the date of the launch of the .uk domain extension (June 10, 2014). So if you have already registered the domain name ‘business.co.uk’ you have up to five years (June 10, 2019) to decide if you want to register ‘business.uk’. There are a few subtleties to this reservation and registration process – the steps to register are listed below. How to Register a .uk Domain Name – Step by Step 1. If the domain name has not been previously registered as a co.uk – you simply go to a Nominet certified domain registrar and search for the .uk domain name. Since it hasn’t been previously registered as a .co.uk – you may register the .uk as you would any other domain name. |
2. If the .co.uk has already be registered – by you or anyone else – you need to first determine that the .uk domain is in fact pre-reserved for you. To see who has the right to register the .uk you can search using Nominet’s .uk rights search tool: http://www.dotuklaunch.uk/rights-lookup-tool. This right of registration lookup tool will return a result which informs you which domain has the rights to the .uk pre-reserved registration. For example if you type in ‘business.uk’ into the lookup tool – the result will come back informing you that ‘business.co.uk’ has the pre-reservation for ‘business.uk’.
3. Presuming that Nominet has verified that you are entitled to register the .uk domain name – you can proceed to do so through a Nominet registrar. One word of caution is in order here: multiple Nominet registrars have reported that your registration details must be identical to those of the .co.uk registration. That means your name, address, email address, and phone number must exactly match the registration details on the .co.uk. So for example if you registered the .co.uk with an address that is ‘123 Elm Street’ you cannot change that to ‘123 Elm St.’ on the .uk registration. Nominet will see that the two sets of data don’t match up exactly and will require that you try again. So pay attention to the details of your data when inputting the new registration information for a .uk domain. One final note on the registration process – if you decide not to register the .uk domain that is pre-reserved for you, you must continue to renew the .co.uk domain in order to maintain the rights to register the .uk that is pre-reserved. If at any time during the five year pre-reservation period you fail not to renew your existing .co.uk domain, then the .uk equivalent will automatically become available for another party to register. Of course after the five year pre-reservation period, the rights to your .uk domain will be forfeited and anyone can register the .uk version of your .co.uk domain. So if you are interested in registering the .uk version of your domain – the clock is ticking. One Final Note on Pricing The new .uk domain extension was launched by Nominet on June 10, 2014. There was a precedent for the pricing of this domain extension – as it is generally regarded as a ”replacement” for the legacy .co.uk domain extension. In order to understand the pricing of this particular domain – we created the following table which shows the advertised price of the new .uk domain at various popular UK registrars. Keep in mind that some advertise prices ex VAT (meaning tax is not included) and some with VAT included – some are also running special offers on the .uk domain. So assuming that everyone will pay VAT (which they will) yields the following price ranges for the .uk domain: RegistrarPrice of .uk Domain for 1 Year* 34SP.com£2.50 godaddy.com£4.99 easyspace.com£5.99 fasthosts.co.uk£5.99 123-reg.co.uk£7.19 1and1.co.uk£7.19 uk2.net£7.19 names.co.uk£8.39 * VAT included As you can see – the variation in price is enormous. Especially given that every registrar pays the same fee to the registry (Nominet) for each .uk domain name. The point is that even though the registry is setting a base price the individual registrars are responsible for setting the final price to the consumer or business. As we can see by comparing the ”final” price to the consumers for the new .uk domain – this final price can vary with individual registrars by hundreds of percent. The advice for the final buyer is obvious: Don’t assume that the base price the registry sets means that any particular registrar will be influenced by that price. Be certain to shop around and compare the actual price (with VAT included) to get the best domain pricing on new domain extensions. |
ON TUESDAY, THE House of Representatives voted to reverse regulations that would have stopped internet service providers from selling your web-browsing data without your explicit consent. It's a disappointing setback for anyone who doesn't want big telecoms profiting off of their personal data. So what to do? Try a Virtual Private Network. It won't fix all your privacy problems, but a VPN's a decent start.
In case you're not familiar, a VPN is a private, controlled network that connects you to the internet at large. Your connection with your VPN's server is encrypted, and if you browse the wider internet through this smaller, secure network, it's difficult for anyone to eavesdrop on what you're doing from the outside. VPNs also take your ISP out of the loop on your browsing habits, because they just see endless logs of you connecting to the VPN server. There are more aggressive ways of hiding your browsing and more effective ways of achieving anonymity. The most obvious option is to use the Tor anonymous browser. But attempting to use Tor for all browsing and communication is difficult and complicated. It's not impossible, but it's probably not the easy, broad solution you're looking for day to day to protect against an ISP's prying eyes. Trust Factors VPNs can shield you from your big bad cable company, but they are also in a position to potentially do all the same things you were worried about in the first place—they can access and track all of your activities and movements online. So for a VPN to be any more private than an ISP, the company that offers the VPN needs to be trustworthy. That's a very tricky thing to confirm. One solid indicator? Check whether the VPN keeps logs of user activity. Many privacy-focused VPNs are intentionally very up front about their no-log policies, because they want to make it clear to law enforcement groups around the world that even if they are served with a warrant or subpoena, they won't have the ability to produce customer records. It's worthwhile to specifically check a company's Terms of Service to see what it says there about logging and scenarios where it would (or wouldn't) disclose user information. It's frustrating to acknowledge, but it's crucial to understand that even these gut checks aren't foolproof. A company could misrepresent its logging practices or could accidentally store data without realizing it for longer than it means to. Additionally, research shows that scams are common among VPNs, especially mobile VPNs, and that some services simply don't offer any of the features they say they do. A simple way to improve your chances of landing on a safe and well-meaning VPN is to pay for one. Free VPNs aren't inherently bad, but all services have to make money somehow. A free trial is one thing, but a totally free service may not have the resources to actually offer the security features it claims. And even if you've done all the research you can and checked the reputation against independent assessments, there can still be flaws in how companies set up and configure their VPN services, which could cause data leaks that are simply beyond your control. |
Choices, Choices
These caveats don't make VPNs useless. It's just important to understand that these services aren't a magical solution to all your privacy woes. "ISPs are companies that we pay for a certain service, and sharing personal information of their clients with third parties is wrong on all levels," says Sergiu Candja, the CEO of CactusVPN, a mid-sized VPN based in Canada which says it does not keep user logs. Candja adds that consumers should feel empowered to vet VPNs by checking their stance on logging, choosing smaller companies that are less likely to be targeted for having access to tons of valuable data, and using a VPN that is based in a different country. What the VPN world really needs are standardized independent audits. Until those become commonplace—which doesn't seem likely any time soon—your best bet is to stick with reputable names, rather than rushing to the first Google result. F-Secure Freedome, for instance, received plaudits from independent security researchers for its mobile product recently. A VPN called Private Internet Access is bare-bones, but well-reviewed, and a recent FBI case appeared to confirm its claims that it does not store any user logs. In truth, there may be no such thing as a “best” VPN. You're simply looking for something with the best chance of working as advertised. Once you've made your pick, the set-up process is fairly straightforward: You pay for access from the VPN of your choice, create an account, and then download the VPN's portal program onto your computer and mobile devices. After you log in, most VPNs offer different servers you can connect through that are based in different countries. Many also offer features like "kill switches," so that if your internet or VPN connection becomes unstable, the VPN will automatically quit pre-selected programs if they're running. This reduces the chance of data leakage from sensitive programs during periods of funky connection. Once you install your VPN, you can use the IPLeak.net tool to check whether the service is functioning. There are some more practical downsides to VPN use, aside from general trust issues. Connections can be slower, for one. And after a broad crackdown to prevent users from accessing different countries' content catalogs, Netflix no longer works on most VPNs. The reason to consider VPNs in light of the House vote about ISPs, though, is that they're fairly easy to keep on for large periods of time. If you're concerned about your ISP's bulk data collection and want to really throw a wrench in their snooping, a VPN you trust will do the trick. |