The internet was originally established during the 1970s and was known as the Arpanet. By the 1980s a parallel system, the Joint Academic Network (JANET) was set up in the UK and used by Universities, the Ministry of Defence and research organisations to communicate electronically with one another.

By the early 1990s, the emerging internet service providers such as Demon, Pipex and BT became involved with the network and started to provide domain names to customers on a commercial basis.

Most countries have their own Top Level Domain. The .uk TLD was first used during the 1980s, and at that time a voluntary group called the Naming Committee managed the registration of .uk domain names.

As the demand for domains increased, a new organisation was needed to manage the .uk TLD and as a result Nominet UK was formed in 1996 as a private, not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee.