Cohen disputes UK registry's legitimacy

May 2005

The company that runs the UK's Internet registry is not officially recognised by the government and as such has no right to decide what should be done with the millions of domains that it sells each year.

That at least is the claim of Ben Cohen, former owner of iTunes.co.uk, who lost ownership of the domain to Apple in March after a ruling by an independent expert hired through Nominet's domain resolution process.

Cohen has been decrying Nominet since the decision and made a variety of legal threats over the decision. However he recently discovered that he was not able to take the actual decision made against him to the High Court for Judicial Review because of Nominet's peculiar status.

Following questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the government was forced to state that there is "no formal relationship or written agreement" between the UK government and Nominet. As such, it is not a public body and so is subject only to the usual laws covering UK companies.