123REG Taking Liberties with your .uk domain registration rights

[Skinner]

Didn't HEG already do this once with the dropping names being transferred at midnight WITHOUT explicit consent ?

As best I as a member of both the public and nominet observed there were no repercussions. They got away with it once, now they are twice as big (post-merger), who says they won't get get away with it again ?

Are you sure this occurs? There's the section in the Nominet RRA relating to Accredited Channel Partners taking over domain names and requiring explicit content. Have you any examples of this occurring or not occuring?

 

[grandwizard]

Just had an interesting chat with Nominet it is not clear when 123-Reg will release the .UK names to their customers. BUT worse Case scenario you might need to Raise a DRS to get control of your own domain so if you had plans to launch a business on your .UK in the near future you might be out of Luck. it seems 123-Reg blundered on this process perhaps they have an individual manually moving these names into various accounts the pace is as slow as fat tortoise, getting feedback that this could drag into next year.

It would have been better for an opt in solution free .uk registration for 2 years customers have to Do it themselves and the domain magically appears in the account instantly.
But hey Don't panic, wait panic if you need to sell your domain with .UK.

 

[RobM]

Or better still..STOP...USING...123REG....
Spamming amateurs.

 

[Skinner]

I was just chatting to another nom member, and they asked an interesting question about voting rights.

Prior to the various mergers, regardless of the order they happened or who ate what, using totally made up numbers. Wouldn't it have looked like

123-Reg 3%
Heart 2%
Daily 1%
GoDaddy 2%
KeySystems 2%
DomainMonster 1.4%

Giving them 11.4% of the vote, now they are all 1 company, does their 11.4% now become maxed out at 3%, and does that make their vote significantly weaker ?

Figure this is as good a place to ask

 

[Whois-Search]

It doesn’t start off with percentages...

The voting rights start off with an allocated number votes - linked to the number of domains a group of linked registrars has:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/...s/2017/03/07170910/Voting-rights-AGM-2017.pdf

As HEG and Godaddy have now merged and they have registered a million extra .uk this year.....Then next year you could be looking at a voting right allocation under the name of 123-reg or Goddady of 4-5 million votes?

Note: Key-Systems is not part of that group and is still independent

The capping comes in during a resolution to change the articles (10%) or elect non-executive directors (3%)

See 4.3 Applying the cap:

https://nominet-prod.s3.amazonaws.c.../2015/08/58367_votingrightspolicy17052012.pdf

That formula is very complicated and not as simple as just 3% of the vote.

It depends on the total number of uncapped votes cast, the number of votes of the largest voting member (123-reg/Godaddy), and then a cap number is generated at 3%

In the year @invincible won the cap was 44,077

https://nominet-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2015NEDresults.pdf?x59965

So back then each of those brands you mentioned could have had 44,077 votes each (3%). And you needed to hit the quota of 489,740 to win.

In that election today Godaddy would have 44,077 and so would Key-Systems.

However obviously the numbers change every year and more top 20 members are created as everyone moves up a place as others merge.

 

[fuzzer]

Nobody says that any member won’t breach rules in the future. The rules regarding this issue are very specific. There are plenty of people watching so if that happened again I’d expect we’d hear about it soon enough. I’m not sure what else anyone could reasonably do otherwise. Any suggestions?

That's the issue - if they're now allowed to get away with registering the .uks under Identity Protect Ltd, it's a lot harder for people to watch as it acts as a cloak. How about suggesting they change the details back to the same as what the corresponding .co.uk was. The original reasoning to why they put them under whois privacy sounded like waffle!

 

[Edwin]

Yeah. If they take over names that have "Identity Protect Ltd" as the visible Whois registrant, nobody other than maybe the original legitimate registrant would ever be the wiser. There's literally nothing for external parties to monitor, no matter how vigilant they try to be, so long as a million names (or whatever) are hidden behind a single identity.

 

[Edwin]

Just had an interesting chat with Nominet it is not clear when 123-Reg will release the .UK names to their customers. BUT worse Case scenario you might need to Raise a DRS to get control of your own domain so if you had plans to launch a business on your .UK in the near future you might be out of Luck. it seems 123-Reg blundered on this process perhaps they have an individual manually moving these names into various accounts the pace is as slow as fat tortoise, getting feedback that this could drag into next year.

If this were the US, there would probably be lawfirms emailing around to try and put together a juicy class action suit on behalf of wronged registrants. They love it when large groups of people suffer some kind of a loss. But here... well, we shouldn't hold our breaths!

 

[ausername]

Vote with your wallets, renew those .uk domains that you wish to keep in 2 years with a registrar which is handling this in a more acceptable manner.

Didn't namecheap steal quite a few customers from Godaddy when their CEO was photo'd shooting an elephant? Perhaps a clever competitor could capitalise on this outrage by offering a discount on any .uk domains transferred from 123reg for the entirety of 2019.

 

[ausername]

ps. Anybody mentioned the monopolies and mergers commission yet? One business having such a large share of a market having achieved that through acquisitions, seems it may have slipped under the radar? Its different when a company achieves that just by having a superior product (e.g. Google with search, facebook with social networking).

 

[anthony]

At the very simple level, unless the RoR has entered into a contract willfully, including payment of a consideration, then these domains are clearly being registered in bulk by Identity Protect Limited. It's a simple matter relating to contract law!

And don't be fooled by any line that may be espoused to suggest that these are for the 'beneficial ownership' of a RoR either, as this too must be a willful act.

The whole matter has more holes in it that a lump of Swiss cheese!

 

[Edwin]

At the very simple level, unless the RoR has entered into a contract willfully, including payment of a consideration, then these domains are clearly being registered in bulk by Identity Protect Limited. It's a simple matter relating to contract law!

And don't be fooled by any line that may be espoused to suggest that these are for the 'beneficial ownership' of a RoR either, as this too must be a willful act.

The whole matter has more holes in it that a lump of Swiss cheese!

That's as may be. But unless and until it's challenged in court, it's all just so much letting off steam.

Nothing will change just because a bunch of people get angry about it on a forum. That's not to say it shouldn't be discussed - but it's important not to mistake discussion for results, or to assume it will somehow effect change. (Lesson learned bitterly and painfully from the .uk debacle)

 

[boxfish]

I got a sales enquiry for a .co.uk/.uk combo yesterday.

Checked the whois and the .uk has been registered to Paragon without permission/notification.

Logged into my Nominet account and the domain is nowhere to be seen.

Spoke to Vidahost and they said I will receive an email 'in a few weeks' on how to 'claim' my domain. Until then they are unable to do anything and I am unable to control or transfer my domain.

Seems fair.

 

[martin-s]

Complain to Nominet please @boxfish

 

[Nigel]

sorry to hear of your predicament boxfish. Nominet have allowed this to happen - I imagine they were overjoyed when they heard their largest registrar was going to register all these .uk domains 'on behalf' of their customers. Great for the stats!
Yes - I agree complain about this - but I wouldn't expect much to happen. I think it needs outside intervention to sort out nominet. Your MP might be a better bet or trading standards. They've effectively taken away something that belongs to you - without your permission and now you're stuck in limbo - all overseen by nominet. It is also within nominet's power to reverse the action and give you back the domain with the ROR intact.

 

[anthony]

sorry to hear of your predicament boxfish. Nominet have allowed this to happen - I imagine they were overjoyed when they heard their largest registrar was going to register all these .uk domains 'on behalf' of their customers. Great for the stats!
Yes - I agree complain about this - but I wouldn't expect much to happen. I think it needs outside intervention to sort out nominet. Your MP might be a better bet or trading standards. They've effectively taken away something that belongs to you - without your permission and now you're stuck in limbo - all overseen by nominet. It is also within nominet's power to reverse the action and give you back the domain with the ROR intact.

This is a good point, Nominet is long overdue for Government intervention, but we don't expect it to happen any day soon. The time will come, possible in late 2019/early 2020 when the shit storm of the .uk starts hitting home. There'll also be quite a number of MPs who'll want to focus their efforts on non-Brexit matters by then, which will be helpful too.

I await the day when these 'hidden' registrations suddenly are handed over to the RoR registrants anyway, as it is pretty obvious that this will be the only way to minimise a lot of fingers being pointed at Nominet.

 

[boxfish]

Can someone please post a link to the Nominet WHOIS showing one of these .uk domain names as now registered please?

https://www.nominet.uk/whois/?query=yorkcitywalls.uk#whois-results

 

[boxfish]

I just reported this to Nominet via phone and the key points I took from the conversation were:

They were only made aware of this this morning.

Paragon are 'OK' registering .uk domains under their name as long as they transfer it to the rightful owner when requested - them stating 'wait a few weeks until you receive an email' is not acceptable, they shouldn't be hindering me in using my domain in any way.

They are going to speak to the Paragon Account Manager to get something sorted with Paragon for the situation as a whole.

If I need my domain transferring back into my name immediately then they are willing to overule Paragon and do it, but they would prefer for Paragon to get something in place to rectify it for everyone affected.

Once they have spoken to the Paragon Account Manager they will send me an update on how to proceed.

The chap I spoke to was is called Tim, he was very helpful.

\

Thanks. Any idea why the WHOIS is showing the domain name as suspended?

Nominet said it was changed to Suspended 5 days ago and they have no idea the reason why. All affected domains show the same.

 

[Nigel]

problem is this shambles may be costing affected registrants sales already. How many buyers could be put off bidding on a domain if the .uk is separately registered under privacy. Thank goodness the domain we sold on sedo yesterday wasn't affected by this. Buyer paid for it and we transferred same day. That would not have been possible if we were locked into the situation that boxfish and many others find themselves in. Am I right in saying this will be affecting over 2m registrants?

 

[timter51]

I got a sales enquiry for a .co.uk/.uk combo yesterday.

Checked the whois and the .uk has been registered to Paragon without permission/notification.

Logged into my Nominet account and the domain is nowhere to be seen.

Spoke to Vidahost and they said I will receive an email 'in a few weeks' on how to 'claim' my domain. Until then they are unable to do anything and I am unable to control or transfer my domain.

Seems fair.

What the f.... that's unbelievable.