Have Nominet elections gone tribal?

[Whois-Search]

There is something interesting happening at the top of the Nominet voting rights - it is almost becoming “tribal” amongst two groups of large members.

1. Large ICANN Registrars

The top 17 members would have been capped at 48,616

Which is total capped vote 1620540 * 0.03

See: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/n...rep-170718.pdf

It looks like James managed to get at least 10 of the 17 capped members (to hit the 540,180 quota first stage):

https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/threads/nominet-top-100-members-2018.154840/

At a guess that would be 10 large registrars voting for someone they know well (amongst the top 17) through ICANN groups.

2. Large Portfolio owners

Then you have David...Who is not from a large registrar but might have got a few second preference votes from them as the incumbent.

However he still needed under STV some large first preference votes to stay in the race until the last stage.

The large portfolio owners would also vote for a like minded candidate from the secondary market (just like the large registrars).

So in the top 50 you have to look towards:

14 Coherent Limited 79816
15 Mark Adams 62804
18 Nokta Internet Teknolojileri Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. 46220
22 Behrendt Professional Corporation 40466
25 ANY-Web Limited 38122
28 Adelere Aodu 32143
34 NameKing Inc. (Rookmedia) 27781
37 Michael Burnham 22169
44 Giant Games Ltd 19737

Now David must have got some of those first preference... as those portfolio owners get bigger they are now capped the same size as Godaddy (everyone above 48,616).

So it would only take a bit more consolidation in the top 10 for the top 10 portfolio owners to become very powerful under the current voting rights ?

In the next two years we will have a one seat election with a large ICANN registrar incumbent.

To beat them the second group above really needs to get together now and put up a candidate that everyone votes for in the same preference.

 

[RobM]

Expect to see members of the nominet board in future leave and go get a job on the boards at these registrars Totally impartial of course.

I think the only surprising thing here is that you seem surprised.

 

[Whois-Search]

I think the only surprising thing here is that you seem surprised.

I’m not surprised just pointing out what is happening. I’ve even seen Nominet staff join Godaddy right now and Domain Monster (Godaddy) staff join Nominet in the past.

If you want Alex or Rob to win next year you need those large portfolio owners to vote the same way.

 

[RobM]

Never going to happen. There is no way under the current gravy train system of anyone ever getting in who won't simply make money for major registrars and (probably) some nominet board members. Until people realise this and look at how the structure can be changed to get nominet back to it's original remit all these things are simply created to make little members feel like they actually have an input. Expect more disproportionate price rises and note who will benefit from any changes in the future - it won't be the registrant or 95% of the members. Voting in this 'election' was simply choosing whether you prefer dog or cow s**t.
This was simply as transparent as voting in the Russian election

 

[Whois-Search]

Well yes ... but that is the voting policy we have to work with and we are already 10 years too late to stop the diversification.

According to an answer they gave me at the AGM Nominet is now a technology company benchmarked against the likes of BP Plc !

And another price rise is guaranteed and coming:

The Board approved a recommendation from Executive in January 2018 to leave pricing unchanged in 2018/19 but undertake a broader strategic pricing review in 2018 for the year 2019/20. The review findings will be presented at September 2018 board meeting with a decision being made in November 2018. Should a change be agreed, this would be announced in December 2018 and effective from June 2019.

https://www.nominet.uk/wp-content/u...t-Board-Matters-February-March-compressed.pdf

 

[RobM]

'..we are already 10 years too late to stop the diversification..'

Oh dear.
Not really much point in taking part then is there?

 

[Whois-Search]

That all goes back to this EGM in 2006:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/22/nominet_wins_egm/

If you look at these slides I took at this AGM:
http://twitter.com/whois_search/status/1019586024085905409

See the one that says “Expanding our portfolio”

 

[martin-s]

https://www.nominet.uk/news/reports-statistics/uk-register-statistics-2018/

I wonder why total domains under management is falling... A new low in June this year, and down more than 5% since June 2014 (remind me, did anything special happen then?)

(Sarcasm for those who missed it)

 

[Whois-Search]

.uk launched in June 2014
https://www.nominet.uk/shorter-snappier-uk-domains-to-launch-on-10th-june/

So we are 4 years down the line ....

2 year renewals most likely

 

[Skinner]

I haven't updated this for a while...

.UK: 2,072,895 (25% uptake)
CO: 8,717,979 (isn't this about a million and change down, while .uk is 2m up?)
ORG: 471,943
ME: 84,724

It would be interesting to see how many .UK's exist without a matching .co.uk to see actual uptake.

As we get closer to the drop date, I think that .co.uk number is going down more, and then it will stablise with only a few million more than the 11.5m we have now, before even more dropping within the first few years when renewals start coming up for those 6 million, yet to take them.

 

[Whois-Search]

Hi Rob,

No it doesn’t work like that...

The 3% cap is only applied to members who have actually voted. However that means no one can have more than 3% of the capped vote 1620540 when the votes are counted.

Popularis used to publish the cap...
https://www.nominet.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2015NEDresults.pdf

2015
Take the total votes off the table: 1469219
Times that by 0.03 = 44,076.57
The cap was rounded to: 44,077
Same figure is in their letter at the top

This year ERS haven’t published the cap however it will be....

2018
Total number of capped votes: 1620540
Times that by 0.03 = 48,616.2
The cap will be rounded to: 48,616

The Top 17 members can’t have more than 48,616 if they voted.

If you take James’s first preference votes: 566290 (no transfers)

566290 / 48,616 = 11.65 votes

I would imagine he therefore got at least 10 large member votes (first preference) and the rest made up of smaller votes. As he had no transferred votes (they only put him first).