Eligibility Guidelines for a Name within AC.UK

An institution or organisation may register one or more names in the ac.uk domain provided that it satisfies at least one of the following criteria: part of its set of core activities is to teach at tertiary level (which is defined as teaching students beyond the upper age limit for compulsory education); or part of its set of core activities is to conduct research where a reasonable proportion of the results are placed in the public domain; or its primary purpose is to provide support for tertiary level education or associated research activities; or it has the status of a Learned Society.

Where necessary, the assessment that the "core activities" or "primary purpose" fits one or more of the categories above will be determined from the institution's or organisation's Articles of Association or equivalent document.

Note: there is a domain sch.uk which may be used by teaching establishments that are not eligible to use ac.uk as a result of the criteria above (however, there are also rules regarding this, which are also complex - if you require a .sch.uk domain, please call us to discuss eligibility on 01684 565058).

Rules for the choice of a domain name An organisation may take out as many names within the ac.uk domain as it wishes, subject to the following constraints which will apply to each name requested. A request will not be allowed if it is for a name that is either one or two characters in length. A request will not be allowed if it is for a name that is currently a second level domain name under the uk domain (e.g. org, co, and the like) or a top-level domain name in the DNS (e.g. com, edu, and the like) will not be allowed.

The name requested must, in UKERNA's opinion, be unlikely to present a substantial risk of confusion with other similarly named organisations or activities already registered under ac.uk. Subject to these constraints, names will be approved on a "first come, first served" basis. Should these rules be revised at a later date, existing registrations will remain valid even if they would otherwise fall outside the revised rules. If a name is allocated as a result of misrepresentation on the part of the requester or its principal, UKERNA reserves the right to withdraw the allocated name. In such a circumstance there will be no compensation for costs (direct or indirect) incurred by the organisation as a result of the need to rename.

Valid with effect from: 1 December 1998

Eligibility Guidelines for a Name Within gov.uk

These guidelines apply to all new requests for registration.

Some domain names were registered before the guidelines were laid down. Such names should be regarded as exceptional, and not as setting a precedent. Overall authority for defining naming rules in the .uk domain rests with Nominet. These rules can be found at http://www.nic.uk/rules/rup2.html.

Registration is limited to UK government departments, local government bodies and associated public sector organisations. It is not for use by individuals or by associations representing public sector staff. Projects and local authority departments should generally be treated as sub-domains of the parent body eg. housing.authority.gov.uk or project.department.gov.uk. The acceptance of a name is conditional on that name being used specifically and exclusively for the organisation on whose behalf it is registered.

The committee expect that the use of an approved domain name on a web server will lead directly to the home page for that organisation and not to that of its ISP or any other agent. Abuse of this principle will result in the name being withdrawn. Guidelines for Choice of Domain Name The principles for determining what name an organisation may adopt shall be: No two character names.

The name requested shall reflect the legal name or trading name of the organisation. The chosen name shall minimise the risk of confusion with other similarly named organisation and avoid the risk of inadvertent masquerading.

Three and Four Letter Acronyms (TLAs/FLAs) will be considered ONLY if: the customer is a central Department of State (e.g. DSS); or there is no reasonable and meaningful alternative; or the customer is a central government body such that both has been established in its current form for at least 12 months and is generally know by that TLA/FLA within government and to the wider public CCTA will be the final arbiter of what is considered to be an acceptable TLA/FLA. Project names will be registered ONLY where they are pan-departmental and of national significance.

Naming Conventions Requests for registration stand a greater chance of quick acceptance if they follow the following conventions:

Civil Service departments in Northern Ireland, because they mirror departments in Whitehall, are required to use the suffix "-ni".

Local authorities may generally use the format "area.gov.uk", unless there is the possibility of confusion with another authority (eg city and county).

The following optional suffixes may be used (with or without the hyphen): "-bc" Borough Council "-cc" County Council "-dc" District Council "-mbc" Metropolitan Borough Council "-tc" Town Council Where towns or districts have the same name a county identifier should be used eg town-county.gov.uk.

Certain types of public sector organisation are REQUIRED to use a suffix (unless the full title is used). These are: Embassies "-emb" Fire services "-fire" Government Regional Offices "GO-" (prefix rather than suffix) Housing Authority Trusts "-hat" Joint Services Units "-jsu" Library and Education Boards (Northern Ireland only) "-leb" Local Education Authorities "-lea" National Park Authorities "-npa"

Additional Information: A number of requests for registration have been initially rejected with advice because the applicant has supplied misleading or inadequate information. Applications should make clear how the status of the organisation qualifies it to be in the UK government domain. (please put this information in the comments box when ordering) In most cases this is straightforward (eg borough council, central government executive agency). In the case of marginal organisations it is helpful to know: the status of the organisation; the status of the staff (eg civil servants, local government officials); the source of funding; to whom the body is accountable. Any questions about these guidelines, or specific candidate names, can be directed to naming@ccta.gov.uk or gov@a-q.co.uk.