Nominet, the not-for-profit in charge of the .uk domain registry, has approved a plan to distribute its multimillion-pound surplus among "education, research and development initiatives" to benefit the UK internet community.

The question of what to do with the spare cash has been bouncing around the domaining community for years.

Nominet doen't need all the money it brings in to run the registry, but its right-on constitution forbids divvying the surplus as a dividend to the domain sellers that form its membership.

After a members' vote and board approval, the newly-formed Nominet Foundation will kick off the philanthoparty this summer. Nominet proper will give it a first donation of £5m.

The foundation's structures and governance are still being settled and it isn't taking applications for funding yet. Keep an eye on the Nominet website here (http://www.nic.uk/) if you reckon you've got an idea for a worthy project.

Some domainers wanted Nominet to simply cut its prices in response to the surplus, or fund inhouse research into improving online security. ®

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