Wednesday, April 29, 2009

.gov.uk or .org, it wouldn't make much difference

As some will know, very soon we'll have a Supreme Court - website to be www.supremecourt.gov.uk - and during a debate on the subject in the House of Lords a question was raised by Lord Henley about the domain it would use, specifically that it will sit within the gov.uk TLD.

It was raised because it was thought that has a Supreme Court and therefore separated power from Government it ought not be using gov.uk for its website or email address. Lord Bach, at the Ministry of Justice wrote to Lord Henley after the debate clarifying the use of gov.uk noting,
I have taken this point up and there are very sound reasons why gov is a part of the address The Supreme Court needs to operate on a very secure, robust and resilient system It will need to handle sensitive information in a secure envronrnent including the provision of remote access from a range of locations. The use of the Government Secure Internet (gsi) meets those needs in the most cost effective manner. To create a secure system of similar resilience and capability would significantly increase set-up and future running costs.
Reality check. It's a domain name that points to an IP address, ergo, you could a bloody .com if you wanted and still have it working from within the GSI. No need for a new system at all with extra running costs etc etc.

NOTE: I am not saying I agree with Lord Henley. More that the argument that a different TLD such as .org would require a whole new network to be built to sit beside the GSI is bollocks.

9 comments:

Sam said...

I think it should be .gov.uk or another restricted style domain.

There are many sites which can try to imitate government websites and one check is that it is .gov.uk which prevents fraud.

unseen said...

I do agree actually - it's a constitutional point. Why not give them supremecourt.uk ?

dizzy said...

I'm not sure, after all, whilst the Judiciary is not part of the Government it is a branch of government

IanVisits said...

Not to forget that the Palace of Westminster is neither a .gov or a .com, but is a tld in its own right.

http://www.parliament.uk

Anonymous said...

I was going to agree with the .uk-er's to support www.supremecourt.uk until I remembered www.royal.gov.uk (!) The Queen isn't 'part of the govt' either.

Personally, on balance, I think the Court should assert itself and go .uk as a symbol of how it means to go on.

John McClane said...

supremecourt.gov.eu could be used. unless it is already.

Unknown said...

Dan, that being the case it should just get the domain early and be supremecourt.eu it's going to be there eventually anyway.

H

nick said...

The police, who are not supposed to be part of the Government, have police.uk (e.g. met.police.uk or btp.police.uk). There's also nhs.uk, and the health service isn't exactly free of political interference. Do any other parts of the court system need websites, and would supreme.court.uk work?

Not a sheep said...

You seem surprised that a Government spokesman doesn't understand IT; I'd be more surprised if one did.