Who introduced drop catching at Nominet

[Sound]

I am very interested to know who first introduced Drop Catching too Nominet and if they are still working for them or have now been moved on.

I see the introduction of Drop Catching as being very anti business and core to the negative structure within Nominet.

They have also missed out on a very lucrative revenue stream had they allowed for an auction process for suspended domains rather than the lazy catching operation.

I struggle to understand how Nominet have allowed this practise to continue for such a long period of time. They must have noticed the negative impact it had on them and the stranglehold it had on the Business community.

 

[tifosi]

Nobody did, and nobody didn't.

And the DAC was never set up as a drop catching tool / service. It was a high speed/usage selective replacement for the whois/whois2.

It is merely allowed facet of what a registrar can/can't do.

Some of the first registrar/members to do it are still here... myself included. Others have faded away after the prenom era. Others are no longer with us. And others just lurk until chastened into action.

 

[Brassneck]

I am very interested to know who first introduced Drop Catching too Nominet and if they are still working for them or have now been moved on.

I see the introduction of Drop Catching as being very anti business and core to the negative structure within Nominet.

They have also missed out on a very lucrative revenue stream had they allowed for an auction process for suspended domains rather than the lazy catching operation.

I struggle to understand how Nominet have allowed this practise to continue for such a long period of time. They must have noticed the negative impact it had on them and the stranglehold it had on the Business community.

Good question. I was fairly late to this so will leave it to others to fill in the history, however I fully agree with your comments on negative impacts. Always seemed to me that some kind of auction system would have been more honest way of re-distributing dropped names but I am sure somebody will post shortly to say why that wouldn't be sensible......

Stephen.

 

[Sound]

I believe its at the heart of Nominets problems and explains why they dislike domainers rather than domain investors it was like operating a broken cash-point machine that was giving away money year after year.

 

[monaghan]

They have also missed out on a very lucrative revenue stream had they allowed for an auction process for suspended domains rather than the lazy catching operation.

To financially benefit they would have had to change the 1st come 1st served that until recently has been highly thought of and take the domains out of the general registration pool, or alternatively allow registrars to run the auctions prior to deletion (which many have done for quite some time as it was pointed out during the recent renewal consultations) and then cream off a percentage.

The drop process is not really that different from other registries except that the details are not published so it is left for everyone to implement their own findings rather than follow a set of parameters.

At least with the free for all drop catch process you have a chance of getting your name, with the registrar auctioning the name it is down to those with the deepest pockets and the registrars to laugh all the way to the bank.

 

[tifosi]

Drop catching as it has been for the last 10yrs is dying in increments, steadily & slowly as fewer & fewer decent domains are released - for numerous reasons.

Ironically the one thing that could kick-start it... albeit a few years down the line, especially for uk-based private registrars, would be the implementation of direct.uk!

 

[RobM]

I still don't see the current system as 'fair' as the automaton catch system. Then anybody with a tag had a chance at catching names. Now you need a tag *and* the fastest script/server without which you will be lucky to catch anything. Another example of nominet claiming something is best for us and implementing it regardless of opinions. And before anyone says anything this is not a 'whine'. I catch some domains, people on my system catch some domains, however most premium names will always go to the same two or three people under current dropcatching conditions. I suppose I'm biased being that I had and sold around 8000 co.uk under the automaton

 

[Bailey]

I see the introduction of Drop Catching as being very anti business and core to the negative structure within Nominet.
.
I struggle to understand how Nominet have allowed this practise to continue for such a long period of time. They must have noticed the negative impact it had on them and the stranglehold it had on the Business community.

almost the Exact words of some of my first posts when I first became active on the UK scene at Acorn. From memory hardly any thread ever got a response. In fact discussing it in any detail seemed to piss a lot of Acorn members off

 

[RobM]

On on hand I can see the OP's point. However what is the alternative? Registrars auctioning domains (or keeping them) when they expire? To me this is far worse as only the registrar would gain and I can see a lot of renewal emails 'going missing' in order to auction off some premium names.

 

[Bailey]

On on hand I can see the OP's point. However what is the alternative? Registrars auctioning domains (or keeping them) when they expire? To me this is far worse as only the registrar would gain and I can see a lot of renewal emails 'going missing' in order to auction off some premium names.

It would have least put the expiring names out to the "public arena" instead of it becoming the inbreed cycle that it has become. Public awarness of the value of available names would have also become a UK "public acceptance' by now

Any argument about misapproriation of domains etc is hogwash. The Gtld market works very successfully thank you. (And without the 90 day protection of our cctld)

 

[monaghan]

I still don't see the current system as 'fair' as the automaton catch system. Then anybody with a tag had a chance at catching names. Now you need a tag *and* the fastest script/server without which you will be lucky to catch anything. Another example of nominet claiming something is best for us and implementing it regardless of opinions. And before anyone says anything this is not a 'whine'. I catch some domains, people on my system catch some domains, however most premium names will always go to the same two or three people under current dropcatching conditions. I suppose I'm biased being that I had and sold around 8000 co.uk under the automaton

I'd publish the entire drop list and then drop the lot in 1 go in the early hours of the morning with a small transaction limit per "owner" rather than per TAG so as to stop those with multiple TAG's distributed round a number of subsidiary companies gaining a benefit. This way, there can be no argument, a single TAG can't catch more than the transaction limit and there is only a short time hit on the registry rather than people banging the DAC every 200ms all day long.

If they did anything else, it would be necessary to pull back all names to Nominet at expiry to prevent registrars from gaining by changing contact details and hijacking the suspension process.

 

[RobM]

Alex this sounds similar to the old system of automaton or am I misunderstanding? Then all tagholders had 1000 requests per day and the 'nearest' to the drop time was awarded the domain. No bangining every 200ms.

 

[Bailey]

I'd publish the entire drop list and then drop the lot in 1 go in the early hours of the morning with a small transaction limit per "owner" rather than per TAG so as to stop those with multiple TAG's distributed round a number of subsidiary companies gaining a benefit. This way, there can be no argument, a single TAG can't catch more than the transaction limit and there is only a short time hit on the registry rather than people banging the DAC every 200ms all day long.

If they did anything else, it would be necessary to pull back all names to Nominet at expiry to prevent registrars from gaining by changing contact details and hijacking the suspension process.

That would have still resulted in those in the know "TAG owners" securing the best of everything that became available .. "registration service providers wouldn't have seen it as apart of their remit.

The whole .UK proposal is the "Chickens coming home to roost" scenario. and it was long overdue.

Yes and I do blame Nominet for the whole - collapse of the UK scene (I don't consider collapse too strong a word). If the same organisation remains in charge of the UK namespace then God help-us anyway.

If it was an 'Individual' in a Public office that was identified he would've have been Sacked years ago

 

[tifosi]

It's not the number of TAGS, but the number of memberships. Each registrar/member is allocated the same dac requests irrespective of whether they have 1, 2 or 10 tags.

Some in the past have bent this rule by joining up relatives, thier dog, or some other ficticious party, to claim an additional allocation. I'm sure some still are doing this, though the payoffs are far less. Others bundle dacs together and take a cut. Both against t&c though theres some grey areas apparently!

Broadly speaking the catches are far more evenly spread than in the past due to the number of catchers on the scene.

I'm certain that if .uk is introduced then there will be some 'intervention' at expiry time to block this.

 

[tifosi]

Alex this sounds similar to the old system of automaton or am I misunderstanding? Then all tagholders had 1000 requests per day and the 'nearest' to the drop time was awarded the domain. No bangining every 200ms.

As I mentioned, the automaton or dac were never there to be optimised for dropcatching. They're there to be used as a tool for public facing registrars.

I was involved in the dac beta and I don't ever recall registrars being asked about the number of dac requests. It was something to do with the system they created and the scalability of 'bucket' slots. Something to do with a multiple of seconds/minutes and the rolling 5minute barrier.

 

[Bailey]

It's not the number of TAGS, but the number of memberships. Each registrar/member is allocated the same dac requests irrespective of whether they have 1, 2 or 10 tags.

Some in the past have bent this rule by joining up relatives, thier dog, or some other ficticious party, to claim an additional allocation. I'm sure some still are doing this, though the payoffs are far less. Others bundle dacs together and take a cut. Both against t&c though theres some grey areas apparently!

Broadly speaking the catches are far more evenly spread than in the past due to the number of catchers on the scene.

I'm certain that if .uk is introduced then there will be some 'intervention' at expiry time to block this.

The Whole system was rotten from the start. And No I don't blame those that took advantage. Good luck to them - particularly those that knew it was time to get-out.

Of course Nominet are not about to allow history repeat itself - say goodbye to drop catching as we know it.

 

[monaghan]

I was thinking more of 5-10 transactions per second on the drop system and a short drop window where they all drop at once. Stop the database access, run the drop everything query and re-open database access, free for all for the next few seconds, job done until tomorrow.

We all know what time the drop happens, we can all see the entire drop lists, we all prioritise for the names we really want and even the slowest of connections would be able to exceed the speed needed to meet the minimum transaction requirement.

Where 10 people all decide on the same name, it is still down to speed and I can't see a way to get round this other than manually allocating requests or putting in place a random allocation of all requests for each name.

Anyone registering more than the transaction limit is clearly standing out as cheating the system so can be identified.

Of course this still doesn't get round the issue of a registrar's T&C's allowing them to renew and approve the registrant transfer pulling the dropping name out of the usual drop cycle.

 

[tifosi]

Bailey. I agree to a large extent. IMO it's not that the dac systems are there per se that is the problem, it's how Nominet essentially have let pretty much anyone become a member/registrar with very little comeback or vetting or checking on what they do. If becoming a registrar was more difficult (from the start ie 10-15yrs ago) e.g. as for eu registrars posting a E10000 credit bond then the entry would be very different.

Nominet's policy & intention of what member stakeholders are and do has never been at the forefront. It's caused ruptions & rifts. And continues to do so. As it is Nominets stakeholder policy has come and gone with the tide. Entry level is low to allow everyone from interested public, to web dev companies, to full public registrars to be members with the same essential rights. It's never been clear, and it's never been perfect.

From memory .eu drops are a bit different. They are released in batches on the minute, every minute, at random. They tend to be mopped up by bundled registrars e.g. realtime.at who use a global network of post-landrush registrars to generate an enormous dac allocation.

 

[Bailey]

Of course this still doesn't get round the issue of a registrar's T&C's allowing them to renew and approve the registrant transfer pulling the dropping name out of the usual drop cycle.

And whats wrong with that. This again works very well in the Gtld World. Then you would have a "market place" (in fact several) where the value of domains was highlighted "from the Get-Go"

Then it's money that talks instead of "Technical know -how". As in just about everything in the real world

 

[monaghan]

And whats wrong with that. This again works very well in the Gtld World. Then you would have a "market place" (in fact several) where the value of domains was highlighted "from the Get-Go"

Then it's money that talks instead of "Technical know -how". As in just about everything in the real world

I never said it was wrong, however, at present it is down to how T&C's are enforced and this is very vague, those with good lawyers put in their T&C's those who are not so sure follow Nominet's published drop cycle. Result is what happens to your name may or may not be what we see on Nominet's reminder emails leading to customer confusion.

Single set of rules for all is what we need.

I'm a poor geek rather than a rich investor, so am in favour of technical know how