In opposition to AFNIC, the .UK administrated by Nominet based its success (third world register in relation with a lot of registered names) into a simply and direct registry procedure based into the principle that goes "first that arrives, first in attention". Speaking clearly, anyone can register any character chain without a previous verification. This is more complicated in case of renovation. In fact, shortly after, the procedure was tacit: in the Microsoft case for example, the "hotmail.co.uk" name belonged to it since several years and it was renewed automatically when terms have expired. In July 2.003, Nominet chose to impose an express renovation to the name heads. The thing that escaped from Microsoft is: it permitted Hotmail.co.uk goes away and it was available recently in October! So much the worst, when the new head prevented to Microsoft UK in order to transferred the name, the English branch doesn’t take into account the non-agreement to the main house! At the present time, all came back to its place but this funny story gives divine light on the necessity for all about a carefully administration of its dominion name index: As Nominet remembers us into a memo " the standard is the same for all! ".

See http://www.nominet.org.uk/News/NewsStories/PositiveRenewalsSummary.html

JCV & SB