EGM.uk - Please sign this petition against Nominet's 50% price rise

[spiderspider]

Nominet can't tell you what it is going to do with all of the money it will gain from price rises because it can't predict the future. However with extra funding it should, like any other company with more funds, be in a better position to be reactive to evolving circumstances.

So this price rise isn't to ensure that the company is in a better position to undertake promotional activities?

Or is it?

Which answer or yours should I take as being correct?

 

[Edwin]

And I suppose going on £40 million in the bank isn't enough to be reactive to "eventualities"?!

 

[Stephen]

because they can!

The Nominet Board wishes to ensure that Nominet continues to be a key player in the worldwide domain name sphere, as well as in other speheres but to much less of an extent.

Should the company decide it needs to fund something via its investments then it might have the ability to do that. What any commercial company, even if is not for profit and membership based, probably shouldn't do is decide it wishes to fund something and then raise its prices in order to eventually have more funds available to do whatever it was that might have become a missed opportunity by then.

Nominet can't tell you what it is going to do with all of the money it will gain from price rises because it can't predict the future. However with extra funding it should, like any other company with more funds, be in a better position to be reactive to evolving circumstances.

The most honest statement so far.

I disagree that is a good enough reason but I believe,
it is closer to the truth than anything else to come out of Nominet.

Nominet are raising more money "because they can" as a monopoly on the UK namespace,
they don't need it now but they may need it in the future.

Stephen

 

[bonusmedia]

Bollocks. Good companies invest their cash to make a return. Sitting on cash is the opposite of good business

This business should be either private and open to competition or public and not seeking a profit.

"We are a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, generally performing these services on a cost-recovery basis"

Even the Invincible David wasn't aware of that so it's probably unfair to expect a lowly registrant to know what's hit them

 

[Edwin]

The business is private and has competition. We have other competing registries with one, Verisign's .com, providing significant competition in the marketplace. Verisign will consider Nominet as a competitor within domain names.

But .com has been around since prehistoric times, in web terms. It's not magically "more of a competitor" now than it has been in the past. In fact, since companies all over the world fight over England-language .com domains (driving prices higher) it's probably less of a competitor than it might once have been.

I was familiar with the general theme of the Registrant T&Cs once I was reminded of the existing content by Nominet (I don't review then very often). Registrants don't generally purchase services from Nominet very often. A small number purchase domain names directly at £80 + VAT. Instead most purchase domain names from Registrars who set their retail prices accordingly. Those are the prices most Registrants pay, prices not subject to the T&Cs because they are not set by Nominet, and this offers competition, something Nominet does not influence.

Of course they do! The wholesale price affects the retail price, it's impossible that it wouldn't. Registrants don't pull their registration price out of thin air. The starting point for their calculation is the wholesale price (though they add variable amounts of markup, granted) If Nominet puts the wholesale price up, the retail price will trend up too. Just like it would in any other industry. That's pretty much commerce 101, very very basic stuff!

Now you may be right that we can't predict the EXACT price rise for a specific Registrar - but that's a very, very different (and much less important) statement than suggesting that there wouldn't be a price rise.

The fact that you don't seem to understand this suggests two equally disturbing possibilities:
A) You don't understand the fundamentals of how companies set their prices
or
B) You understand perfectly well, but are deliberately pretending to misunderstand to try and drive the discussion off course

Regardless of whether it's A) or B), you should realise that your contribution is not helping matters.

 

[Edwin]

Furthermore, all self-managed tag holders (a distinct sub-category of clients Nominet explicitly created) by definition pay the wholesale price so every one of them will experience any price rise in full.

 

[Stephen]

portfolio of domain names

...It seems to me that the group that seems likely to feel the price rise the most are those that are registrars, don't retail domain names at anything above wholesale, register to a materially identical Registrant, keep a portfolio of domain names and generate not enough/no income from it because their monetisation or sales aren't sufficient/don't exist to fund an absorption of the wholesale rise.

Yes and as you have said in other posts they face possible ruin.

50% increase is no joke.

I expect better things from the Nominet board than what is being proposed
and with such weak and contradicting evidence to support the rise.

Nominet runs the risk of financial claims from those companies.

Also a 100% reduction of renewal revenue to Nominet
as those domains will expire.

Stephen

 

[Edwin]

Those registrars receive the same wholesale pricing.

The same wholesale pricing as who?

 

[Stephen]

legitimate expectation

I think I said may face ruin in the context that others may not. What would those companies possible claims be based on? Those companies likely registered domain names through registrars (even if the registrar was a controlled one) and not directly through Nominet, hence those registrars set the price. Furthermore those companies may have purchased domain names at unspecified retail prices from other Registrants who, in turn, registered those domain names with other registrars (some may have been caught by registrars also acting as drop catchers).

Suggest you go and see your Nominet lawyers and ask them to explain
the overriding legal concept of "legitimate expectation" to you and the board.

As explained previously Nominet have made it a requirement that the registrants,
see a copy of the Terms & Conditions of Nominet and so form part of the transactional base.

The past Nominet statements, not for profit status and all 20 years of Terms & Conditions to date
have created a legitimate expectation that these policies would continue into the future.
In reliance domain portfolio owners have maintained registrations as investments.

These would now be rendered onerous investments to maintain by the proposed new policy on fees.

This disappointment of legitimate expectations is so unfair as to be an abuse of power,
and therefore the proposed policy is of questionable legality.

Stephen

 

[Stephen]

not all have same net wholesale price!

All Nominet *.uk registrars receive the same wholesale prices from Nominet.

No some Registrars have received a refund via promotional rebates wholly prohibited
against by the Nominet Articles of Association (see no 6).

So making the domains cheaper to some chosen and specific registrars (members).

Hoping that Nominet seek a whole 100% refund of those rebates,
so as to act within their own rules and regulations and act within the law.

Stephen

 

[jasman]

David, when I and many others in this community voted for you, we placed our trust in you to represent our interests and fight our corner. For you to then turn around and side with the Nominet management against the interests of the community who voted you in, I think is a disgrace.

 

[looks]

david, when i and many others in this community voted for you, we placed our trust in you to represent our interests and fight our corner. For you to then turn around and side with the nominet management against the interests of the community who voted you in, i think is a disgrace.

+1

 

[bonusmedia]

You are suggesting having a monopoly on apples is fine because there is competition from oranges. This is a typical tactic from a company trying to protect their lucrative monopoly - a little like Bill Gates funding Apple.

As for sitting on cash, perhaps you misunderstood. Of course their cash is 'invested'. The point is to invest in the activity of the business which should, if the company is basically competent, produce a better return than giving it to a broker to play with.

If you can't make a better return on capital investing in the business than giving it to a fund, you may as well close down or become a fund.

Unless of course you're operating a highly lucrative gravy train.

The suggestion that millions of established sites can simply switch to .com if they don't like it is facetious, there is a massive base of customers who essentially have no choice but to pay up whatever they decide to charge.

 

[bonusmedia]

BTW the price rise will have a negligible effect on my business and I imagine a negligible effect on most non registrars. That's really not the point.

Having seen some of the laughable guff Nominet has wasted their money on, I am aggrieved at the idea they can cream off millions more at will

 

[Stephen]

Trying to answer your questions

I will try and answer all the questions, not just pick and choose like some on this and the Nominet forum.

Did you copy this from an email you'd received? .

Yes, on a request to a Professor of Law.

How have they created a "legitimate expectation" that the prices wouldn't change?.

Nearly 20 years of no price rise and the wording of not for profit and fees on a cost recovery basis, take all that together and a reasonable person would not expect a 50% increase.

Why, because the investment is no longer affordable to the investor before that investor had sold it? Why would Nominet be at fault for that? Who even knows the investor was ever going to realise their investment in their particular portfolio? Remember, unlike shares, domain names are not owned but are leased so domain names cannot be considered a one time investment of money to maintain.

If anybody thought they would not have there .co.uk renewed do you think they would ever register one?

IP is something you can invest in and has even less physical form a domain.

Nominet has gladly taken the money for 20 years and has effectively said we don't need your money now, we are going down a different path.

Look at lots of other areas were that happens, then compensation is paid to those that loose out.

This could by the PPI that the banks have suffered with, strange things happen when you involve other regulatory authorities or the law, who have a different viewpoint than you do.

Stephen

 

[jasman]

The Twitter feed says that members with more than 5% of the voting rights have signed the petition now. Does anyone have any update on what's happening now?

 

[Stephen]

Alex Bligh's blog

A very strong item that Nominet should take into account,
when considering what to do next.

Although the Alex Bligh's Blog article does not support the EGM, many important and fundamental points are raised, which are worth looking into.

http://blog.alex.org.uk/2015/12/11/on-nominets-price-rise/

Indebted to Andrew as he originally posted this link on another forum.

Stephen

 

[RobM]

I asked a drop catcher I know (member here) today on the phone, while we were talking about all sorts of things, if he was going to sign EGM.uk and he said he wasn't bothered because the price rise doesn't affect him.

What a strange statement. If he is paying 50% more for his registrations then the price rise *does* affect him.... 50% of the previous registration price! If he doesn't register domains he is not a dropcatcher. I would either have to assume from this asinine statement that a) you made it up or b) the person you spoke to has no business sense. Sounds to me though a little like argumentum ad populum.

 

[Edwin]

What a strange statement. If he is paying 50% more for his registrations then the price rise *does* affect him.... 50% of the previous registration price! If he doesn't register domains he is not a dropcatcher. I would either have to assume from this asinine statement that a) you made it up or b) the person you spoke to has no business sense. Sounds to me though a little like argumentum ad populum.

I think what the person David spoke to might have meant was something like this "Because I charge £50 per domain I catch, a 50% price rise doesn't make a meaningful difference to my huge profit margin."

You're spot on when you point out that 50% is still 50%. Money is money, there's no two ways about it. So at the end of the day even a drop catcher will make "less than before" - but perhaps as in my example above they feel they can absorb the price rise without batting an eyelid because the profit margin is still over 90% on every catch.

I'd have thought they're the least meaningfully representative group for exactly that reason - which other group of domain users is GUARANTEED to make a return of £30, £40, £50 for every domain they succeed in registering?

(That's not to take anything away from drop catchers - it's a tough market that requires a lot of effort to stay on top of - but if we're talking purely in terms of costs, revenue and margins it's more predictable than any other line of business involving domains on a per-domain basis)

 

[RobM]

Claiming that 'this doesn't make a noticeable difference to me' does *not* mean that there is no difference. Therefore it can't really be used as an example to everyone to insinuate there's no difference can it? He may well consider it 'insignificant' as, to some extent, I do *personally*. This doesn't mean that prices aren't going up by a ridiculously large percentage for no good reason. I no longer have thousands of domains but members here still do. To them I'm assuming a 50% rise in renewal fees is not 'insignificant'. To make a throwaway remark about something someone may have said on the phone is hardly addressing the issue or even relevant.
Really we just need to know something very simple. What possible costs increase could there be at nominet when they already have millions available to justify a whopping 50% rise in registration fees? So far I haven't heard a sensible answer beyond 'our costs have gone up' which totally doesn't address the money available, what these 'costs' are, and the huge pay rises for board members. I don't actually expect we'll ever get an answer because this suits Nominet and we all know from past experience they do what's best for them and the top few registrars. The registrants come a very poor second.