Don’t let the CLOUD get hijacked online!

Here at the UK IT Association we were proud to be asked to give our opinion alongside other industry bodies on the subject of the proposed new Top Level Domains (TLD's). Alongside our allies Cloud Industry Forum and Open Forum Europe we have voiced concern over the application by some bodies to register the new TLD's as closed registries, meaning they would be allowed to control access on who could use new domain names such as .cloud. Currently Top Level Domains, such as .co and .co.uk are open registry, so anybody is allowed to register a name if it is available.

Here is what Andrew Corbett, Development Director of the UK IT Association (UKITA), had to say, “a monopoly of the .CLOUD domain risks creating an unfair marketplace in which all other cloud providers are deemed inferior or less likely to be found if people select vendors with the appearance of specific relevance by the form of the TLD,”

“What we may be seeing here is at best an ill-informed decision by large companies to seek to create a closed cloud registry, worst case it is a deliberate attempt to muscle out the smaller providers, ultimately at the expense of the end user consumer of cloud services. Diversity in the cloud supply chain is key to its success, but if one company or another does succeed in claiming ownership of ‘cloud’, my fear is that many of the more agile, specialist SMB providers will be razed to the ground.  We fully support CIF in raising this matter high on the public agenda and encouraging people to have their say through the formal processes available – but we all have to act quickly if we want to ensure common sense prevails” stated Andrew.