back to article Ten-year .co.uk domain names now available

From today it is possible to register or renew .co.uk domain names in annual blocks of up to 10 years at a time, following policy changes at .uk registry manager Nominet. Punters will also be able to register domains for just one year. Previously, UK businesses could only register their names for an initial period of two years …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you do forget your logins,

    just write the US Gov. They have it nice and secure on their db's.

  2. Pen-y-gors

    Dangerous!

    10 year renewals sound like a good idea but can be very dangerous - in ten years the email address used to register the name may no longer be in use, the person responsible has left the company....reminders get missed, registration expires and egg on face when website disappears!

    1. Lee Dowling Silver badge

      Re: Dangerous!

      If your company IT department doesn't know what domains it owns, and put them through WHOIS once a year or so to check registration dates and ownership information, you're ALWAYS going to have had problems. At least now you'll get 1/5th of the problems you would have before.

      If companies want to argue that a domain is their intellectual property, they should damn well look after it and not "forget" that they are leasing it in 2-year (or, now, 10-year) terms.

    2. Andrew James

      Re: Dangerous!

      Yeah it could be risky !!!

      Or you could set up a default email account for stuff like this. registrations@ for example.

      Have it as a distribution list so more than one person in the department receives the email. Crisis averted.

      1. Lee Dowling Silver badge

        Re: Dangerous!

        Or put old employees email onto your catch-all rather than having latent accounts hanging around and accepting email YEARS after they'd left?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dangerous!

        Very good idea to pin renewal address for domains to an email system not dependant upon continuation of these domains, and which you are likely to keep long term for purposes other than just domain registration. Otherwise if your DNS registration goes down you then can't authenticate in order to recover it during the late renewal recovery period.

  3. Andy Fletcher

    Maybe for thier next trick

    they could enable some privacy for the WHOIS records on .co.uk domains. Just like the rest of the world does.

    Quite why the hell they think that anyone and everyone worldwide has the right to know where I live just because I'm a UK resident who owns a .co.uk has always baffled me. It's not like the authorities couldn't get the info if they needed it from the registrar.

    1. Andrew James

      Re: Maybe for thier next trick

      This is something that <u>really</u> irritates me too.

    2. Lee Dowling Silver badge

      Re: Maybe for thier next trick

      Because a .co.uk was always intended for *CO*mpanies?

      If you're a company, I believe you have a requirement to publish that information in other places (e.g. shops, offices, etc.). Not only that, you have to be on companies house anyway, and your website must contain valid contact details and your company number - how do I know? I stung a company that tried to screw me over and made them pay to replace all their stationery, website, and put up signage because they were never compliant with the law that says they need to do it. And seeing as all .co.uk's are supposed to be UK companies, it's really no big deal.

      What you probably want is a .me.uk or an .org.uk (both of which allow you to do this on your WHOIS record:

      Registrant type:

      UK Individual

      Registrant's address:

      The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their

      address omitted from the WHOIS service.

      That said, the .co.uk's that I do own, are registered C/O my domain host (who just happens to be a major UK ISP too, and I've never ASKED them to do that), who has my full contact details. So although people can't get my address directly from a WHOIS, they can still find me if necessary.

      But why not blame others for your wilful disregard of domain-naming policies instead?

    3. Dr Paul Taylor

      Nominet registration for individuals has an opt-out for personal data.

      Not so for .eu

      1. Eccles1

        Not so for .eu, really? http://www.eurid.eu/en/faq#privatecontact_visible

    4. This post has been deleted by its author

    5. Eccles1
      FAIL

      Re: Maybe for thier next trick

      If you are an individual and register a .co.uk as such then of course you can opt out of having your address showing in the WHOIS. You've been able to do this for ages. What you cannot do, for obvious reasons, is pretend to be an individual when you are in fact a business, and then hide your address details. Nominet are pretty hot on this and will suspend and even cancel your registration if they think this is what you are doing.

      If you are any kind of company you should be registering your domain with the company type set correctly (you registrar should provide options to do this). You cannot then opt out of the WHOIS.

  4. Jumble

    "Quite why the hell they think that anyone and everyone worldwide has the right to know where I live just because I'm a UK resident who owns a .co.uk"

    Would you want to deal with a commercial organisation that conceals its address? Neither would I.

    1. Andrew James

      If its not on their website, i dont want to deal with them.

      Who has time to pi$$ around doing a whois check to find out where they are based. And I've never done a whois check to see if the company in question has matching address on their website and on their domain registration.

  5. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    Forget login?

    We will just have to find long-life post-it stickers.

    1. Great Bu

      Re: Forget login?

      For 10 years it's probably advisable to use a bit of sellotape* to stick the post-it to the side of your monitor.

      *Other sticky tapes are available.

      1. Cyclist

        Re: Forget login?

        Sellotape won't last 10 years on a monitor. Blu-Tac will. I've got a bit of paper Blu-Taced on my wall dated 11 Sep 2008 that shows no sign of moving. Shame the ink isn't as durable.

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