Domain Registration Related News
UK government unprepared for domain emergency
July 2004
The UK government has introduced a new
initiative to inform citizens about major
incidents; however preparingforemergencies.gov.uk
provoked its own domain name emergency when civil
servants failed to register the public variants
Earlier this week the UK government announced an
8m campaign to help the public prepare for terror
attacks and other emergencies, including advice
booklets for every UK household, supported by a
series of television adverts and a web site at
preparingforemergencies.gov.uk.
However, no consideration seems to have been given
to protecting related domain names and a number
have been snapped up by third parties within hours
of the initiative's launch. One domain -
preparingforemergencies.co.uk - already sports a
parody of the government's site. Obviously this is
rather embarrassing for the government and
doubtless some Whitehall mandarin will be
regretting their lack of forethought.
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