With the increasing commercialisation of the World Wide Web, and the high perception of the Internet as being an insecure medium in which to transact business, comes the need to find ways to reassure visitors to a website of the legitimacy of the business the site represents.

At one time, the InterNIC used to require that anyone wishing to register a .COM domain prove that they were doing so for a commercial organisation. This restriction was dropped some years ago, and although the .COM domain is understood to indicate a commercial organisation, it is not proof of that: these days, anyone can register a .COM domain.

When deciding upon the rules for registering names within the .UK domain, Nominet (the UK Registrar) included the domains .ltd.uk and .plc.uk to cater for Private and Public Limited Companies. Nominet will only allow the registration of a name in these domains where it matches the name on the Company Registration. Thus someone visiting a website of (or sending email to) a domain named in this way has some built-in assurance of the status of the company with whom they're communicating. For instance, the-net-effect-world-wide.ltd.uk both points to our website and, at the same time, confirms the name of our limited company.

Of course, this relies upon people understanding the significance of the '.ltd.uk' and '.plc.uk' domains, and, admittedly, this knowledge is lacking.

A side effect of Nominet's naming policy in respect of these domains is that, in effect, each limited company has a name that is reserved for it alone. So, while '.co.uk' is the norm, a name in this domain will suffice: but should the public understanding of the significance of '.ltd.uk' and '.plc.uk' improve, businesses can avail themselves of this alternative name form at their leisure.

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