Just got this from DropCatcher

[laura]

Dear Customer,

Through an error in one of Nominet's systems, DropCatcher, and DropCatcher alone, has been unable to detect dropping domain names for several days. We have attempted to raise this issue with Nominet, but they have treated this problem with indifference and they refuse to suspend the service that gives our competitors an unfair advantage since it only affects us. What they do not seem to understand is that in affecting DropCatcher, it also affects you, all of our customers. This number far outweighs the handful of competitors who can still detect dropping domains and therefore we are in the majority, not the minority.

As you will agree, this cannot be allowed to continue. You are needlessly losing names and we are losing customers through a fault that Nominet refuse to react appropriately to. All we asked of them was to suspend this service for all of its users until the playing field is levelled again. They are unwilling to work on this problem out of business hours and went home on Friday evening without a resolution.

What we ask you to do is to put some pressure on Nominet to fix this problem and recompense you accordingly. This is best done by e-mail to the managing director (Lesley Cowley) and the director of IT (Jay Daley). I have provided their e-mail addresses and an example e-mail below so you do not have to think too much about what to write, but please feel free to change it to express any views you may have.

Kind regards
--
Ronnie Davies and Chris Holland

To: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Mistreatment of DropCatcher
Dear sirs,

I have been informed by DropCatcher that they are unable to catch domains that we have booked because they are unable to connect to one of your servers. They have also informed me that all of their competitors are able to connect to this server and that you are unwilling to discontinue all access to the server because it only affects DropCatcher. May I point out that DropCatcher represents me along with many other customers when they go after expiring domain names. This number should far outweigh the number of their competitors and you are therefore not acting in the interests of the majority.

Through your unwillingness to play fair, I am about to lose a domain that I have been monitoring for a long time now that is important to my business. The cost of the booking on DropCatcher is miniscule compared to its value to my business and I fear that I could be losing many thousands of pounds because of Nominet's failure to respond appropriately to this problem. I would like some recompense from Nominet for this major failure on their part.

Yours sincerely

 

[martinkenyon]

:cry: oh dear

 

[Paullas]

.

well they looked to be doing pretty well to me this week ?

 

[tifosi]

server

which nominet server (or service) do they mean? whois / whois2 / dac / prss?

I'm concerned that they aren't catching names, since I still use their services, but equally concerned if there are advantageous methods for anyone considering Nominets policy of equinimity.

Stephen

 

[rob]

I got this email as well despite account being long closed etc. (DPA anyone!? )

If I get blocked can I count on the support of all forum members to get me unblocked?

Likewise if I miss a name will you all support my claim to nominet for compensation?

The systems should be fair, as mentioned a 'level playing field', with no bias on if you are a sole catcher or have a million users. For this reason next time I encounter the same problems many do (blocking when under limit etc) I wont be asking for everyone to email in certainly not demanding that nominet suspend a service!

It would be interesting to know what the problem is, as I have had problems recently with various nominet services ie. DAC's uptime

 

[devolution]

The old forums are back up now! But running from 2003!! Apparently they lost a backup of the last 2 years...

 

[chinesewhispers]

But have most regular users now migrated here?

Will they return to detagged? Is there any need?

 

[rob]

But have most regular users now migrated here?

Will they return to detagged? Is there any need?

I think i will be staying here... things are more 'open' etc.

Less chance of the forum disappearing off the face of the planet with no explaination either as there is no commercial interest.

 

[charlie]

did everyone forward the letter provided by dropcatcher to nominet?

 

[paul]

or should that have been, did anyone...?

 

[charlie]

well personally I'd like to see the service up and running again - and if all it takes is to forward the email on

still got credits to use!

 

[rob]

It depends what the service is that they had errors with. Did Chris want Nominet to turn off the automaton (for speculative requests), or the public whois? I really cannot see him meaning that, thus must be DAC?

If it is the DAC it does clearly state that the system is a beta, and no out of office support is provided.

I know of a couple of people who have been blocked / unable to access DAC etc and have played by the rules and not whinged about it, let alone asked tag holders to astroturf members of Nominet to fix it.

The CHC tag did nab a few names, which indicates that some systems were working. How they prioritise which names / customers get their 1000 specs allocation / space on DAC / Whois etc is another matter and if your name was the one missed I would ask why it wasnt on specs and how you can get on specs next time

 

[netserve]

I caught about 80 domains in April and so far this month I've only caught 6 and they were all on spec.

For my system the dacs is down more often that it's up and I now suspect that its a failure or block of some sort at a firewall level with Nominet rather than it being a failure of the dacs itself.

CH can complain about not being able to catch domains for 'several days' but for ourselves I can count on one hand the number of hours dacs has been available this month to ourselves and so far it's not flagged one domain as available.

 

[rob]

Yup have found similar things mainly when it is up the data given does not match reality. On the mailing list there was a mention of replication issues with oracle being called in to sort them out.

Practically this results in names not being shown as free rather going direct to taken, with one point the DAC being several hours behind.

Will anyone support my quest for 'recompense from Nominet for this major failure on their part'... ?

 

[netserve]

Yeh, lets ask them to take pop.co.uk back and put it as a prize in the Xmas raffle. (10p a ticket, £1 a book)

 

[domaingenius]

Is it correct that certain companies are given access
to a special server by Nominet ?. Is that open to everyone
or just the favoured few ?.

DG

 

[netserve]

There's the new dac server but thats on a subscription basis to membes/tagholders only and still in beta testing.

Other than that all of the information on whois servers is in the public domain.

 

[rob]

Further to all this I have just been forwarded this which seems to be Nominets response to CHC's email.

Dear Dropcatcher customer

The problems experienced by Dropcatcher relate to a test service that is
not yet in production and will only enter production when it has passed
suitable beta tests. As part of this testing program we have asked for
volunteers and Dropcatcher are one of those companies that have
volunteered to be a beta tester for this service. This does not in any
way change their access to other systems nor does it prevent them from
registering names as usual.

The conditions for becoming a beta tester are quite clear, we provide
absolutely no warranty as to whether the service works or not and we only
provide support for it during office hours, which are 9am to 5:30pm Monday
to Friday. Our critical production systems, which this may well be when
it is ready to go into production, have 24 hour support available.

Dropcatcher first contacted us to say they had a problem with this beta
service at 4:15pm on Friday afternoon. At that time they claimed to have
had a problem for three days, but they had not contacted us about this
before then. We worked to try to resolve the problem that day but in the
very short time available to us, were unable to find any identification as
to the cause, whether this was a fault with our systems or theirs, or any
way to restore access for them.

However at no point were Dropcatcher unable to register names or to
conduct their normal business. The problems with this system do not
affect their access to our other systems in any way.

The request made by Dropcatcher late on Friday, which we rejected, was for
us to turn off this system entirely and deny access to all the other beta
testers, until we had resolved the problem affecting just them. This is
something that we refused to do because we felt it was an unreasonable
request. Monday and today we have continued to work with them to resolve
the problem and have been able to restore access, though the underlying
cause of the problem has yet to be determined.

We cannot yet rule out a problem with our beta system, nor with the
Dropcatcher system, but that is the nature of beta systems, they are not
without problems and the beta process is intended to find and eradicate
those problems. We see no reason, therefore, to either offer an apology
or consider any claims for compensation.

Jay Daley
Director of IT
Nominet UK

So CHC were able to catch names just not via the DAC, which over the weekend was a worthless exercise as it was so out of sync.

Asking any company for help at 4pm on a Friday never works, especially on a beta system with its lack of support clearly stated.

All in all quite an insight into certain things