On the DRS, I've spoken to Nominet and they rule that out as an option.
To Dee, yes, they have just phoned back a few minutes ago, via the same first-line responder, who has consulted with their domain team, and this is what they said:
They are unwilling to release the .uk domain without first contacting the 'Registrant' and getting their permission to release it. If the 'registrant' says 'no' then they say there is nothing more they can do. If the 'registrant' says 'fine' then what they want me to do is transfer my newly registered .co.uk to the Ionos tag, and they will then consider transferring the .uk to my Ionos account.
That begs a lot of questions. Firstly 'they will then consider...' is not a commitment. I may open an account with Ionos and change my .co.uk tag, and they may still then decline to transfer the .uk (note- I've said I'm willing to pay for the domain at ordinary Ionos rates, even though they paid nothing for it). I've asked for clarification, and when that clarification will be provided, and been told it will be clarified 'shortly' with a status update tomorrow morning.
There is also the fact that the so-called 'Registrant' wasn't the actual registrant at all. The named 'Registrant' did not ask for this domain to be registered. Nor were they asked to abide by Nominet's Terms and Conditions, and that is a Registrar breach of Nominet Rules (at least, I believe it is).
And as mentioned before, if the justification for these mass registrations was protection of the .co.uk, that justification is dead in the water when the .co.uk (like many others - it's happening every day) drops and they're left with zombie .uk domains. At that point, they have de facto registered the .uk domain but then washed their hands of it.
My next question is what happens if the Registrant doesn't even reply to them?
I have further follow up questions which are broader, and not specific to my own individual interest: are the 50,000 Ionos mass registrations set to auto renew? I don't think they are, I seem to remember reading somewhere that they're not, but that's a pretty important issue if the so-called 'Registrant' never asked for the domain in the same place.
And did Nominet specifically tell them, 'Yes, it's fine, we'll waive our own rules about proper use of domain etc being contracted by the registrant in advance of registration'? Because if so, that seems to me quite surprising, in the context of misuse and abuse of domain names, and I don't understand why or how that important condition of registration (a rule Nominet requires of registrars - they have to get that Registrant consent) would be waived. Why would Nominet have agreed to that? Personally I suspect that there was no specific permission granted to waive that rule. But it happened, and when I phoned at the time back in June, a Nominet representative was aware of what was happening, but defended the action on the grounds that it protected .co.uk holders from cybersquatters.
You can't protect a .co.uk holder if they are no longer a .co.uk holder. At that point you become part of the problem, not part of any (alleged) solution.
