[ROARosen]

> There is a risk that if handed back another country might try to claim it for themselves

I really don't get this. What exactly is the risk? If they don't need it why do they need to make sure no one else gets it?

[advisedwang]

Risk 1: Impersonation. ie, someone sets up hmrc.gov.gb and tells people "pay your taxes here" and scams a bunch of people.

Risk 2: Economic loss. People selling .gb domains might take away from .uk revenue.

Risk 3: Political fallout. Perhaps Chagos Islanders somehow get control .gb and demand that the UK give up .io in exchange. There's plenty of geopolitics that could get brought up.

Risk 4: opportunity cost. Perhaps later some major use for .gb arises, but by then it's too late.

These are all pretty small risks, but this is the kind of thing they may have in mind.

[londons_explore]

If the domain has ever been used for anything, there are serious security reasons to never reuse it.

For example, imagine your recovery email address for something important is [e-mail]. If 'gb' is ever reassigned to someone else, they can now get access to anything ever registered at a gb address.

This is the reason things like gmail accounts are never recycled to another user. Early services like hotmail would recycle accounts, but it has since become an 'obviously bad idea'.

[bastawhiz]

The post does say that only one domain has ever been registered and it's been defunct for decades. The risk is probably zero.

[counttheforks]

Old domains which are still referenced somewhere will change ownership and can now be used for phishing or other nefarious activities.

Also it looks official, I'm sure plenty of people would fall for gov.gb if the site looked official enough.