News International's new domains show move towards seven-day Sun

News International has taken control of the web domain for sunonsunday.co.uk and thesunonsunday.co.uk, which were registered on 5 July, fuelling expectations that the company will launch a replacement for the News of the World by expanding the Sun brand into a seven-day operation. The domains were registered by an unnamed individual on the day after the Guardian revealed that a private detective acting for the News of the World hacked into the murdered teenager Milly Dowler's voicemail , but before News International announced that it was to close the paper after 168 years when advertisers and politicians turned against it. However, News International has not so far acquired control of what could be seen as a related domain, Sunonsunday.com, which was created much earlier, in September 2007, and is owned by Marco Milani, the bassist in the group Sun on Sunday. Thesunonsunday.com is owned by an unnamed British individual, and was also registered on 5 July. News International already owns thesun.co.uk for the web presence for the Sun. Taking ownership of the other domain sends a strong signal that it will use that name for a Sunday substitute for the News of the World, which was one of the most profitable papers in the Murdoch empire. The transfer of the UK domain ownership was completed on Monday, according to internet records. No details have been provided on how much News International had to pay for the domain transfer. On Tuesday morning the Sunonsunday.co.uk page did not lead to an active page, though once NI has control of the domain it can add content – including archived News of the World material if it wishes – at its leisure. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.