News International buys sunonsunday.co.uk domain names
The internet domain names sunonsunday.co.uk and thesunonsunday.co.uk have been transferred to News International, it has been reported.
The domain names, which add more fuel to the fire that the News of the World will be replaced by a seven day Sun, appear to have been transferred yesterday, 11 July, although a spokesman for Nominet, the Internet registry for domain names ending in .co.uk, said the change could have happened in the proceeding few days.
Nominet said it could not release the names of the previous owners of domains, although records show the names were registered on 5 July, the day speculation about Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked was announced.
The Guardian reports that thesunonsunday.com is owned by an unnamed British individual, and was also registered on 5 July, and that sunonsunday.com is owned by Marco Milani, the bassist in the group Sun on Sunday.
The two domain names owned by News International do not lead to active webpages.
This comes on the same day as News International announced that most of the journalists who worked at News of the World will be offered other employment by the company.
They said in a statement: "News International (NI) can today announce that it will offer employment opportunities to the vast majority of staff who lost their jobs as a result of the closure of the News of the World.
"Starting next week, NI human resource managers will meet with each of the affected News of the World staff with a view to placing them in jobs."
It added: "NI remains committed to investing in journalism and is proud of the fact that we are one of the biggest employers of highly skilled journalists in the world."
News International said it had already found 30 editorial jobs across its titles, including existing vacancies. It also said that Fabulous, the magazine that came free with News of the World, will be preserved.