Why is .uk not in general use?

[HuskyPup]

I saw www.parliament.uk the other day and wondered why .uk has not been released.

I've tried searching for an answer but don't seem to be able to locate anything so far.

Is there a specific reason? The only thing I could think of was people ending names in "s" and "f"...! :-)

[Samizdata]

All .uk domains are administered by Nominet, and - for whatever reason - they allow only second-level domains such as co.uk and org.uk to be registered.

However, a handful of ".uk only"domains that existed before Nominet was created have been allowed to continue. The example you cited is one of them. Others include the British Library, the National Health Service and the Ministry of Defence.

...

[DonMateo]

.uk isn't the only cctld in this boat, there are plenty of others too, like .au .nz .ar .br .ve ...

[HuskyPup]

.uk isn't the only cctld in this boat

Yep, I knew that, my question is why?

For instance in India you can get both .co.in and .in, the .in being slightly more expensive and, this surprises me, some companies do not buy both extensions.

Saying that although I have several .cn sites I have never considered .com.cn

But back to my original question, there must be a "logical/sensible" reason for not releasing .uk .au .nz .etc but what is it?

[DonMateo]

I think one problem is in how to fairly manage the introduction of the 2nd level domains. Other countries have done this with mixed results.

[true_INFP]

People in the US take for granted that they can distinguish a .gov domain from an .edu domain, and .mil, etc. This ability is often helpful.

I believe they want people in the UK to enjoy the same benefit. However, having to type .co.uk instead of .uk is sometimes quite annoying.