Publishing domain name drop lists — Nominet considers

Group wants to add sunshine to the domain-dropping process.

.UK domain name registry Nominet is considering publishing drop lists of domain names that are regarding to be deleted and released. The organization is asking for feedback on the idea and two other issues during a policy consultation.

Nominet points to three issues with the way expired domains are right now handled.

First, only technically savvy people understand what’s dropping.

Second, firms and people that generate lists of expiring .uk domains tax Nominet’s infrastructure to get the data.

Finally, Nominet believes that people who might use the domains (as opposed to investing in them) are locked out of the process since they don’t have the savvy/awareness that investors have.

Nominet wants to know if people think it ought to provide drop lists to registrars, the public, or both. It also asks:

Do you think that Nominet ought to encourage competition in the .UK secondary domains market?

The organization is also looking for feedback on reducing the use of .UK domains in phishing attacks by explicitly allowing it to stop a domain from resolving if it believes it has a high risk of phishing use. It also is interested in implementing informational law enforcement landing pages when domains have been seized.