The UK domain name authority, Nominet, has commenced public consultations on opening the UK domain name space to 2LD registrations.

Under the Nominet proposal, called “direct.uk”, businesses with a UK address would be allowed to register <theirname.uk>, instead of the 3LD registration <theirname.co.uk>.

The proposal is that a 2LD .uk registration would come with daily monitoring for malicious software and viruses, and a digital signature which minimises the risks of a domain name being hijacked. According to Nominet, these measures would be supported by “a trustmark to give consumers a clear sign that it was a verified domain name”.