Nominet may get powers to close sites used for criminal purposes

Nominet is to examine ways of dealing with domain names that have been set up by criminals to con consumers.

The move by the not-for-profit organisation responsible for .uk internet infrastructure is in response to a proposal submitted by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

Although Nominet told Computeractive that it has in the past worked with Trading Standards, the Office of Fair Trading and the Police Central eCrime Unit to shut down sites using the .uk suffix linked to criminal activity, there is no obligation for it to do so.

Nominet and Soca will work with others to discuss the possibility of getting formal powers to take these websites down.

Nominet initially plans to set up an 'issue group' through which people and relevant stakeholders can discuss the best ways of dealing with the problem and set up the appropriate framework.

Although internet service providers and domain name registrars are among the main organisations Nominet wants to help provide policy recommendations, consumers are being invited to participate in the issue group as well.

Eleanor Bradley, Nominet's operations director said: "We'd encourage anyone that wants to be involved in the process to get in touch and have their say. We want to gather the broadest range of feedback possible across all matters of .uk policy and feed it into our policy development process."

Nominet is calling for those wanting to take part directly to register by 23 February.  It is anticipated that the group will be selected by 2 March, and will meet for the first time later that month.