Why .co.uk?

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Hi
i was browsing some uk sites and it got me thinking. Why uk sites end with .co.uk? Does .co mean anything? Why not just .uk like many other country sites.

someone enlighten me!
 
Man of Honour
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The .uk domain has been subdivided to provide a similar split to that which the US has, so we get...

.co.uk for companies = .com
.ac.uk for education sites = .edu
.gov.uk for govenrment = .gov
.org.uk for non profit organisations = .org

On top of those there are others which don't have a US equivalent
.police.uk
.mod.uk
.nhs.uk

And then there are the really wacky ones that you hardly ever see.
me.uk for personal domains
ltd.uk and plc.uk for registered company names only
net.uk for Internet Service Providers
sch.uk for schools
 
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Phnom_Penh said:
.mod.uk = .mil

;).
Not quite.

.mil is for the US.
.mod.uk is for the UK.

Remeber the American bias to the Internet. So .com, .net, .org etc are all American controlled. Though anyone can sign up to them if they havn't been taken by a US company. And expect to loose out in any argument if a US company wants the domain back from you.

.mil, .gov, .edu, etc are all used for US goverment establishments.

Then there is the .uk, .fr, .de domains for each country which then get split up as mentioned above.


Just look at this in another way. There is no country identification on American URLs. In exactly the same way as the UK is the only nation to not put the name of the country on postage stamps. :)
 
Soldato
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.com, .net, .org are TLD's and not country codes.
The US does have an equivilent of the .uk domain - .us
However as with many country codes this is not divided into subdomains and if you like you can just buy a .us domain (well as long as you can qualify for one).

The .uk country code is looked after by Nominet.
Their decision was to subdomain the .uk country code.
Personally I like this as it gives us a lot more domain names to play with.
Example, my name is Mr. Smith.
I would have had a chance on smith.co.uk, smith.me.uk, smith.org.uk rather than just smith.uk

With some countries you can simply buy a top level domain, in others it is like the UK and the local governing body have decided not to allow the sale of domains in the top level name space.
Anybody from anywhere in the world can buy co.uk, me.uk, org.uk domains.
Again, Nominet's decision.
.us for example are only open to residents of the US, a lot of country codes are restricted to residents of that country.
Other countries allow open sales because their country code is interesting to others (.dj for example & .to) and so see it as a major line of income.
 
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stoofa - yes, but the US is the country that controls the TLDs. So an English or German company who wants a .com address has to ask the American company who control it all.

I was aware that .us existed, but as most of America doesn't take much notice of the rest of the world, they all use the TLDs. :)
 
Soldato
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MAllen said:
stoofa - yes, but the US is the country that controls the TLDs. So an English or German company who wants a .com address has to ask the American company who control it all.

I was aware that .us existed, but as most of America doesn't take much notice of the rest of the world, they all use the TLDs. :)

Yes & no.
It happens that the company who controls the TLD's is American.
Is this fair?
Difficult question - another case of right time at the right place really.
However is it any different from say the DVLA here in the UK?
So OK, the DVLA only have power over number plates and they are only bought by people in the UK.
However anybody who wants a numberplate is forced to buy from this one company.

As you've said the US do class the TLD's as their own, however their own T&C's do state that they are not allowed to take country of origin into consideration when it comes to domain disputes.
So if there is a dispute over a domain they make a decision on who wins - however it is not allowed to come down to you are in the US, you are in Germany so the US company wins.
It is unfair but there - we get used to it :)
 
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