Nominet gives registrars powers to suspend use of .uk domain names for illegal activity

Nominet – the registry in charge of setting the rules for the ‘.uk’ domain names – has introduced new procedures that would enable registrars to suspend the use of domain names that are used for illegal activity. Registrars are businesses authorised by the relevant registry (in this case, Nominet) to obtain registrations on behalf of their customers. The Nominet’s guidance to the registrars says that if they suspect that a domain name is being used for an illegal activity then it may be locked. The lock can apply to an individual domain name or an entire account. The lock will stop an address linking to a web site, it will stop the owner being able to transfer it, and it will cancel the name altogether if the issue is not resolved after 90 days. Nominet says that this action must only be used in the case of criminal issues and not for civil disagreements, such as intellectual property disputes or claims over bills. Nominet also advises registrars to have credible evidence. It says to the registrars, quite sternly, that misuse of the locking facility – such as to disrupt the registrant’s business in order to put pressure on them – will not be tolerated.

Nominet’s action follows its suspension in December 2009 of 1,200 names in conjunction with police. The sites had advertised branded goods such as from Ugg, Tiffany and Links of London but delivered counterfeit goods or nothing at all. For more on that story, please click here: http://www.mablaw.com/?s=Nominet.

Paul Gershlick, a Partner at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP and editor of www.Upload-IT.com, comments: ‘Whilst this action could usefully stop genuinely illegal sites, there are potential downsides. People’s web sites can be crucial to obtaining revenues, and if they are shut down even for a few hours, let alone a few days, a business could be brought to its knees. If a registrar is in dispute over something else with the web site owner and effectively suspends the web site owner’s web presence in order to apply some pressure, this could have drastic effects and no doubt lead to some major legal claims.’