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Nominet UK is the Registry for all domain names ending in .uk. Nominet began registering Domain Names
on the 1st August 1996 and is now officially recognised by the UK Government as the manager of the .uk TLD.
The Internet was originally established during the 1970s and was known as the Arpanet. By the 1980s a
parallel system, the Joint Academic Network (JANET) was set-up in the UK and used by Universities, the Ministry of Defence and research organisations to communicate electronically with one
another. By the early 1990s, the emerging Internet Service providers such as Demon, Pipex and BT became involved with the network and started to provide Domain Names to customers on a
commercial basis. As the use of e-mail grew, the organisations involved with the network set up a voluntary Naming Committee to vet all applications for Domain Names.
With the advent of the World Wide Web in 1994, the commercial potential of the Internet was starting to be
realised. It was not long before the Naming Committee was unable to cope with requests for new Domain Names and the impetus to set up a professional Registry grew.
There was much consideration of what type of corporation the Registry should be. The options to set-up a
private company limited by guarantee or a charity were rejected, and Nominet was established in 1996 as a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee.
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