What's in a name?

If you wanted to look up your favourite store on the Internet, where would you look? Anyone who knew a bit about surfing the Web would try marks&spencer.co.uk or marks&spencer.com. But until two years ago, looking at that website would have got you nowhere in your search for a white shirt or new knickers. Cybersquatters had hijacked the Marks & Spencer domain name, as Internet addresses are called. A company called One in a Million had registered the Sainsbury's, BT, Virgin and Ladbrokes names and was offering to sell them back to the companies concerned - at a price.

The issue was settled in court in a landmark case which outlawed cybersquatters seeking to profit by 'stealing' companies' names.

The right to Web addresses could make the difference between survival and annihilation for businesses in the coming decade, according to a recent survey by the Henley Centre. The report, From Teleculture to E-culture, listing the ten most trusted websites in the UK, makes interesting reading for those who are wary of the New Economy. It was compiled, incidentally, before the recent crash in Internet shares.

The only Internet company in the top six is Yahoo. The others are bbc.co.uk, followed by Virgin, WH Smith, BT and M&S proving that the store was well advised to act swiftly to keep its brand name safe in the Web.

Mr Stokes Jones, of the Henley Centre, said: "This is a serious warning for Internet-only brands. Traditional businesses can acquire Internet expertise faster than new e-brands can build trust and that's going to lead to a lot more failures than just boo.com."

At the centre of many of these controversies is the UK Internet names organisation Nominet.uk, which processes 200,000 names each month from its headquarters on the Oxford Ring Road at Littlemore. Any organisation - or indeed individual - wanting to set up a website ending in co.uk, ltd.uk, pc.uk, org.uk, net.uk and sch.uk must register with Nominet. Communications manager Ms Felicity Hoad said: "We are like an online version of Companies House - that's the closest comparison we can find."

Names ending in ltd.uk and pc.uk must be registered with Companies House, and people are "encouraged" to use org for non-commercial organisations, net for Internet Service Providers and sch for schools. But the reason why cybersquatters can "steal" brand names to register Internet addresses that most people would feel do not belong to them is that Nominet and other Internet registries operate a strict first-come first-served principle - whoever is first to register the name gets it.

Nominet's managing director, Dr Willie Black, said: "We decided that it was better to be open and let e-commerce flourish in the country than to be over restrictive."

Dr Black, originally a nuclear physicist, ended up as "Mr .uk" after running the Janet, the computer network that links British universities, which was based at the Rutherford Laboratory, Chilton, near Didcot. He said: "It was all done by volunteers, but by 1995 we could see that the commercial use was growing. The system was slow and the rules were baroque."

At the time there were 1,000 names - now there are 2.3 million. After several heated meetings, Internet Service Providers and other interested parties agreed to share ownership of a non-profit-making company, which became Nominet, based on the ideas of openness, consultation and consensus.

Despite the problem of cybersquatting, Dr Black believes the original aims have been vindicated. "Countries such as Sweden, which have taken a more restrictive route, have found that businesses just go and register as dotcoms," he said.

He added: "We are reviewing our mediation service to see if we can do anything about 'bad faith" registrations, but it is very difficult for simple human beings to make judgements about who is right. That is what the courts are there for." He points out that only 0.1 per cent of registrations are disputed.

When Nominet was set up in August 1996 in Abingdon it had five employees processing 2,000 names a month. Now it is registering 200,000 a month, and while automation has speeded up the system, staff numbers have grown to 80. Last year Nominet moved to former British Biotech offices at Sandford Gate, Littlemore, and staff numbers are expected to nearly double in the next year. A search for bigger offices has already started.

Personnel manager Ms Lesley Cowley said: "We are recruiting all the time in customer support, IT, administration and accounts. Once they come here, very few people leave - it's just that we are expanding all the time. There is a shortage of IT professionals, but people stay because it's a good environment to work in."

The Internet has expanded beyond the early pioneers' wildest dreams and there seems no limit to the demand for domain names. Nominet is just completing a massive effort, spearheaded by the Government, to give a domain name to every school in England, following a logical pattern - peers.oxon.sch.uk, for example, being the address of Peers School, almost next door to Nominet's offices.

For those who have more problems finding a name, Nominet suggests lateral thinking. Ms Hoad said: "People have started being cleverer in thinking up names. Who would have thought of the name egg for a bank?"

The Henley Centre study revealed that names ending in .co.uk were more trusted than those ending in .com - which must come as a disappointment to those who have paid extra to get a slice of the dotcom action. Mr Jones said: "The medium of the Web may be global, but the people using it are not. I actually think a .com name can be a hindrance, as it doesn't help to differentiate you or add any meaning to the brand."

Unlike its racy US cousin, Nominet's charges (5 to members and 80 to non-members) are low and just cover running costs. This compares with at least 35 for a dotcom name.

Most names are registered by members - Internet Service Providers who have powerful file servers which automatically carry out some of the administration, including billing and credit control, which would otherwise have to be carried out by Nominet.

Most of Nominet's members are ISPs; however, there are also law firms, the police, specialist consultants and other organisations or individuals who have an interest in the development of the Internet in the UK.

**If you want to find out whether your chosen Domain Name is free you can search the Nominet web site at www. nominet.org.uk. A table of Domain Name registrations can be found at www.nic.uk/news/stats. For a step-by-step guide through the web address maze, phone Nominet UK on 01865 332233 or download a copy from www.nominet.org.uk/news/guides/reg1.pdf (Acrobat Exchange will be required for downloading).