Overview Details
I've taken a passing interest in domain names since the late 1990's, and like others at that time, I started with my own surname as a .co.uk, and went on from there. Up until this incident, I'd probably say I'd registered no more than about 40 names, some of which I'd dropped, but most were kept.
For personal reasons which I'll come back to later on, the regularisation of the Pre-Nominet domain names was a very exciting development. As a result of a legal ruling by District Judge Hickinbottom on 7th February 2002 at Dewsbury County Court, Nominet UK were effectively given a green light to press ahead with bringing some 26,000 Pre-Nominet domain names under their own terms & conditions. The determination for this case was a very simple one, the 26,000 registrants had no legal right to the domain names, they had not paid for them.
From this point forward, the fate of these domain names was a decision solely for Nominet UK to make. For those familiar with this period of regularisation, one domain name stood out above all others:
Business.co.uk
This site is an account of my efforts to track down the registrant, my payment to Nominet UK to have the domain name transferred to myself, and the 'transparent investigation' conducted by Nominet UK. Now, I'm not wishing to sidetrack too much into later documentation, some of which Nominet UK sent to me, but in light of the investigation conducted by Nominet UK, the following quotes might be worth noting:
"On 19 July 2005... we agreed that one limited company cannot trade as another and that ........... appeared to have added their name to the trading as field of the register." .. ..........................Nominet UK, 20/11/2006
"On 19 July 2005 we sent an email to the listed registrant's email contact asking for the registrant's pre-Nominet registrant declaration to be returned to us. We advised in this email that we considered Interactive Telephony Limited (Jersey registered 55329, now known as PSINet Jersey Limited) to be the registrant." .. ..........................Nominet UK, 20/11/2006
(History of the Domain Name System, Pre-Nominet)-"At the time, anyone wanting a Domain Name had to apply through a member of the volunteer Naming Committee. If there were no objections to the request within three days the Domain Name was registered. However, the Domain Name had to be one connected to the organisation's name, and each trading entity could only have one Domain Name." .. .......Dr Willy Black, Nominet UK AGM, 20/07/1999
"Nominet charges £30 plus VAT to make a transfer. This fee, which is set on a cost recovery basis, was introduced on 19 May 2003 and is reviewed every six months. As Nominet charges to cover the service provided, once investigation has commenced, no refunds are available if the transfer does not take place......Nominet reserves the right not to transfer a domain name if the correct authority has not been obtained from either party. The transfer fees will not be refunded if a request is subsequently found to lack the correct authority.." .. ......................Nominet UK, 27/04/2006
"We have been contacted by........ who has provided a statutory declaration (Appendix A) confirming that the domain name should always have been registered to him personally." .. ......................Nominet UK, 20/11/2006
"Based on the information that has been provided to us we intend to correct the registrant name associated with the Domain Name to...." .. ......................Nominet UK, 20/11/2006
..but then..
"Our aim is to provide an open and transparent investigation and as such all evidence received to us may be distributed to all parties. In addition, if a party is considered to be the registrant of the domain name they will need to indemnify us. The indemnity is standard and used whenever we modify a domain name record, so that we have assurance that they are prepared to back up any claims they make.".. .....................Nominet UK, 04/12/2006
"I would like to clarify that the issue of whether the domain name is being held in trust is not an issue we will be making a decision on as it is not relevant to us".. .....................Nominet UK, 22/12/2006
"..there is also substantial evidence that the domain name should be registered to Interactive Telephony Ltd. Therefore, on balance of the evidence and the fact the .uk register lists the registrant as Interactive Telephony Ltd, we believe them to be the registrant of the domain name..................any such (rights) claims relate to potential legal rights not recorded on the register or within our remit to decide".. .....................Nominet UK, 22/01/2007
"Refund of the transfer of registration fee for the business.co.uk domain name........As the transfer of registration of the business.co.uk domain name was unable to take place, we are refunding the transfer of registration fee. Please find enclosed a cheque for the amount of £35.25 (including VAT).".. .....................Nominet UK, 16/04/2007