Written question asked by Toby Perkins (Labour) on Monday, 24 November 2014, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 26 November 2014. It was answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative) on Monday, 1 December 2014 on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Nominet

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when and on what grounds Nominet was granted the exclusive authority to administer the .uk namespace.

Answer: Nominet was created as an initiative of the UK internet services community in 1996, in order to manage the rapidly increasing demand for domain names and ensure a single inter-operable network of addresses would continue to evolve. Prior to this, all requests for .uk domain names were approved by a Naming Committee established by the UK Education and Research Networking Association (UKERNA). The Government recognises Nominet’s continuing role in managing the .uk registry on a not-for-profit basis consistent with the multi-stakeholder model for internet governance that the Government supports.

Secondary information