Nominet have announced a number of changes to their terms and conditions with the aim of cutting down the amount of criminals using .UK domains.
The UK government has increasingly focused on ‘cyber’ security in recent years and Nominet has been quick to react to the changes and support positive
change to help protect the global public against online threats.
The changes take effect on the 4th May 2014.
Any .UK domain, whether .co.uk, org.uk, .me.uk or .UK, can be suspended very quickly if it is found to be involved in criminal activity. This is something
that you, as a reseller, should be looking out form.
If you find that one of your clients domains are being suspended regularly, suspicious should
be raised!
There are a number of agencies or agents who can request a suspension, including the National Crime Agency (NCA), Child Exploitation and Online Protection
Centre (CEOP) or the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Lesley Cowley, Nominet CEO says:
“As the .uk registry, we are determined to play our part in a wider community which needs to work together to protect internet users from criminality
online. Trust in the UK namespace is vital, so we are doing everything a trustworthy registry should … It’s established practice at Nominet to
cooperate with law enforcement agencies - we believe that the UK namespace has an enviable record of trust and safety. However we’re taking the
opportunity following Lord Macdonald’s review to make it clear that criminal use of a domain name is an explicit breach of our terms of registration,
and to make it clear how we will respond.”
Each new .UK domain will be put through a number of checks. If Nominet or a Law Enforcement body describes the domains as ‘having no reasonable or
legitimate use’ it will be suspended. Both the registrar and registrant are informed immediately.
The domain name industry needs to move with the times and as cybercrime becomes more intelligent we need to be
able to react quickly.