1985–2000 Most countries have their own
top-level domain (TLD). The .uk TLD was first used in 1985. and at that time a voluntary group called the "Naming Committee" managed the registration of .uk domain names. This consisted of members of
LINX as full members (the main ISPs in the UK), and their resellers as guest members. By the mid-1990s, ISPs who registered domains for their customers were joined by a new breed of domain name specialists who had an entrepreneurial attitude to domain names. The Naming Committee operated a ruleset that forced all name registrations to 'exactly' match the name of the registering company and also limited all companies to a single domain name. The growth of the commercial internet soon brought these restrictions into close focus. As demand for domain name registrations grew, it became clear that a voluntary group could no longer cope with the volume of registrations being requested. It also became clear that the existing ruleset was not sustainable and the Naming Committee was going to break down under the pressure of registrations. When it became clear that a new organization with a new approach was needed to manage the .uk TLD, the Naming Committee mailing list had mutated into a discussion group for domain name issues and many discussions about what type of corporation the Registry should be were held. Meanwhile, at
UKERNA, Dr. Willie Black and John Carey were watching the situation and in 1996 John Carey wrote a proposed plan for a new organization to be called Nominet. This was distributed widely, and a meeting to discuss ways forward was held at a hotel at
Heathrow Airport on 11 April 1996. The options to set up as a profit-making company or a
charity were rejected, and Nominet was established on 14 May 1996 as a private, not-for-profit membership company, limited by guarantee. Whilst the move was generally popular, there was strong resistance from some parts of the industry. Although formed with a board composed of Dr. Black (who became the first
CEO of the new company), John Carey, and the four co-founders drawn from the internet industry, elections were held by the new membership which resulted in the first elected board members to oversee the growth of the UK domain name industry. John Carey resigned before taking up his role following a disagreement over the creation of police.uk. From Nominet's inception on 1 July 1996 until 2002 domains registered pre-Nominet were provided free of charge. In 2002, as had been hinted at its inception in 1996, Nominet began a process over two years of migrating those domains onto Nominet standard terms and conditions and implementing charging. In 2011
The Independent published an article containing quotes about people trying to demutualize Nominet for their own benefit. In 2015, Russell Haworth, a former
mergers and acquisition specialist, became CEO of Nominet. During his tenure Nominet invested heavily into autonomous vehicles, the
Internet of things, and white-space
spectrum management which did not pan out. Despite these outcomes, board salaries continued to rise. In May 2018 Nominet relinquished control over the Nominet Trust organisation, which was renamed Social Tech Trust and announced a "strategic partnership with Social Tech Business". By 2020 the income of Social Tech Trust had fallen to £99,000 from £5.6 million in 2018. Nominet admitted it wrongly calculated election results for its board of directors in 2018 and 2019. In 2019, customers of
123-Reg and
Namesco were invoiced for domain names that were reserved for free by Nominet.
2020–present In 2020, it was revealed that Nominet's introduction of .uk to compete with .co.uk and .org.uk has resulted in increased cost to UK brand owners and caused much confusion amongst registrants. A £4 million investment into registry services was announced in February 2020 alongside the acquisition of US-based cyber security company CyGlass. In July 2020 Nominet announced a new policy consultation for expiring .uk domain names, however the consultation proved to be controversial and widely unpopular. In September 2020, .uk registry watchers noticed unexpected changes in ownership of various .uk names, including sunset.uk, waterfall.uk, pad.uk and trending.uk, all of which were sold by Fasthosts to one or more industry insiders in advance of the domains being released by Nominet rather than going through the proper public process. In February 2021 over 140 members requested an
extraordinary general meeting to vote on removing five board directors, including the chair, and to appoint
Michael Lyons, former chairman of the BBC, and Axel Pawlik, former managing director of
RIPE NCC. On 22 March 2021 an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) was held with the goal to remove five directors from the Nominet board, which was successful. The motion was carried with 53.5% of the votes for the motion, and 47.26% against. Rob Binns, a former Group Treasurer at
HP Inc. and then CFO at The Access Group, was appointed as acting chair. Paul Fletcher was appointed as replacement CEO of Nominet starting in February 2022. In the first days Fletcher joined the board and held a meeting with members. On 10 March 2022, Nominet announced it would be "not accepting registrations from registrars in Russia – we are suspending the relevant tags" and in doing so became the first previously neutral ccTLD in history to reposition itself as non-neutral. == 2021 removal of directors ==