A simple question

[Ferdinand]

This wondered me the day I saw it: Why does co.uk exist?
All countries are:
.at
.ch
.de
.es
.fr
.sk
.us

etc etc... but in England it's co.uk. Why not just .uk like all other countries???

 

[eric2006]

Here's one explaination..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.co.uk

The use of .uk rather than .gb for the top-level domain is due to its pre-existing use in the (now obsolete) JANET Name Registration Scheme in which the order of address components were reversed. .uk was made available in DNS to simplify the translation to and from these addresses. There were plans for eventual transition to .gb, but this never occurred and the use of .uk is now entrenched.

 

[Ferdinand]

thanks...
One learns something new every day

 

[Rhisiart]

Hey man, 'co.uk' is for the whole of the United Kingdom, not just England.

 

[Ferdinand]

Ok, when I said England I meant Scotland and Wales too.

 

[fryke]

And I guess the "co.uk" instead of only "uk" is meant as a symbol against the "American" ".com", then? I mean: They *could* simply use www.bbc.uk, right? Plus bbc.com. Is there some reason behind having to have a 2nd level domain for UK commercial sites?

I see on that wikipedia-article: "It is prohibited to register a domain name directly under .uk (such as .internet.uk) and a second-level domain must be used (such as internet.co.uk)."

Yes, okay, it's prohibited. But why? I think the original poster's question is not really answered yet, is it? At least mine isn't...