Last week we presented our domain name industry report at our first .uk registrar conference. It was well received and has provoked subsequent interest from a broader audience.

The report shows that the domain name industry both globally and in the UK is healthy. The report demonstrates the extent of the uptake of the Internet in the UK. It reveals areas of potential future growth and gives pointers as to current trends in domain name registration and the changing nature of the UK registrar market.

It’s clear that despite impressive growth to date, this is still a relatively young and certainly rapidly changing market. Trust remains a key issue for consumers and businesses alike. The winners in the industry will be those that have developed the strongest, most trustworthy reputations.

Another finding that stands out is that businesses and individuals should prioritise renewing their domain names, as failure to do so could result in their online brand identity being snapped up by someone else. It shows that 70% of registrants renew their domain names, and a large proportion do so well ahead of time, either a month (25%) or a day (14%) before they are due to expire. However, a surprising 14% of businesses do not renew their domain name until the day after renewal is due.

Renewing a .uk domain name is a relatively easy process, and it is possible to renew the registration up to 6 months in advance of its expiry date. For full details please see here.

However, if a registrant has incorrect contact information associated with the domain name they may not receive any renewal reminders from Nominet or their registrar. In such cases they may lose the domain name when it is eventually cancelled and made available for re-registration.

Based on current renewals trends revealed in the report, in the next two years alone, over 140,000 .co.uk domains will be re-registered in less than 10 seconds after they become available. There is an active market in buying, selling and storing domain names, with regular sales exceeding £100,000 and peak values reaching more than £1 million. Domain names are either being registered for resale or for monetisation, by creating a web site that makes money for the registrant through pay-per-click and affiliate advertising.

The point here is that there really is no good reason for any business or individual to lose their domain name in this way, provided that they keep their contact details up to date, and advise their registrar that they wish to renew.

The second meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) took place earlier this month in Rio. It follows on from where the first one left off in Athens last year, discussing the key themes of access, diversity, openness and security.   

As part of a programme of preparation for this month’s meeting we hosted an interactive workshop in October in Westminster for key UK internet stakeholders about the issues of internet governance from a UK perspective. The session highlighted several key issues and opportunities alongside several examples of best practice in internet governance from the UK which we are sharing during this week’s IGF meeting: 

• The majority of people present felt that the most relevant IGF theme from a
  UK perspective was security. When asked to consider what the key theme would be from an international perspective the majority voted for access, with security a close second.
• It was also felt that the theme of security is particularly broad, and it is likely that the Rio meeting will only begin to scratch the surface of many of the security issues.
• Another realisation was that (particularly for the UK) there is a lot of overlap between three of the IGF themes of access, openness and diversity.
• In terms of openness, we are sharing excellent examples of self-regulatory codes of practice, as demonstrated by the Internet Watch Foundation with regard to policing images of child abuse on the internet.
• Diversity is going to be a critical issue on the Rio agenda as the world grapples with how to empower many different cultures and minorities on the Internet.
• As part of the day, Nominet showcased the winners of the Best Practice Challenge. The Challenge was designed to showcase world class Internet governance, based on the Internet Governance Forum’s four tenets - Security, Access, Diversity and Openness. The entrants in Nominet’s Best Practice Challenge displayed encouraging examples of innovation, creativity and determination to overcome some of the obstacles which will also be faced by less developed countries. It’s clear that the
  UK has a wealth of examples to share of how self-regulation works in practice. 

At the pre-Rio event, Alun Michael MP, who was Chair of the Judge’s Panel for Nominet’s Best Practice Challenge, laid out three possible routes forward for internet governance. The first was to leave it to companies and countries to do their own thing (which he dubbed the ‘Wild West option’); the second was to go for ‘international ownership’ through a bureaucratic ‘UN Agency’ approach; and the third was a partnership approach based on self-regulation which he advocated as the best way forward.  

With the additional theme of critical internet resources being added to the agenda, the IGF will certainly be a place of much debate this week. We hope that the debate remains focused on practical examples of good practice and that the attendees from government, business, civil society and academia will be inspired by and able to learn from some of the UK’s leadership in this area.