The English chapter of the Internet Society urges caution regarding the direct.uk proposals. In the absence of consensus for direct .uk and in view of the risk to stability of uk domain name system the conclusion is NOT to implement direct .uk plans to shorten domains as proposed.
Should the proposed security mechanisms be justified they could just as easily be provided under a new or existing SLD such as ltd.uk or plc.uk which are both low volume and limited community managed zones.This would be more consistent with the well established management of the UK domain name space.
Stability and Security of Internet services is an important priority for users. The chapter would prefer enhanced support for the deployment of core Internet protocols that can provide users across the whole of .uk with improved security such as DNSSEC. The benefits of malware scanning as proposed do not appear to be core to ccTLD operations nor likely to be dependable for users.
Full Release is available here:-
Direct UK News release
Obviously it could be released under ltd.uk or plc.uk, but almost nobody use or care about those extensions. Rather release they long awaited 2nd level domains with high class security features.
Hurray for shorter, simpler, more memorable and sleeker domain names that are faster to write. Finally, as the last major country in Europe, United Kingdom might soon have a ‘proper extension’ that other Europeans can recognise.