[*all the following are my views, recollections and personal beliefs, and should not be read as unrefuted 'facts' unless you choose to*]
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"One way for these largest companies to increase their influence and control is to 'colonise' registries: and we see that with major employees of GoDaddy and Team Blue (Namesco) sitting on the Nominet Board as Directors. It's not even impossible that Nominet itself might get bought out in the future by GoDaddy, if they could get away with it, because Nominet is financially tiny in comparison. And this creates (at the very least) the 'appearance' of conflict of interest, to the detriment of smaller business, since the biggest customers are not only now part of the governance of the UK namespace, but (and the mass-registrations were symptomatic) they come to arrangements that please them with Nominet, who step back even when rules are visibly broken, and say (in the old 'laissez-faire' manner of ICANN) that it's up to these huge companies how they act for their customers and how they 'interpret' the rules. It's not. The rules are the same, whether a company is huge or small, and in the case of the mass-registrations the rules are very clear. And now that GoDaddy is itself (since the purchase of Neustar) a competitor Registry, it would seem to many that the risk of conflict of interest is very real.
Simon, you asked the good question, "What would I be able to do if elected?" Good, because it's the practical issue. The first thing to say is that Nominet are very aware that I am a critical 'opposition' candidate. I've used the Acorn Domains Forum as a platform for my views. But I can say with 99% certainty - and it hasn't been denied - that one of the present Directors came online there (using a false name - but was immediately recognised by all - it was embarrassing, because he's done it before and been banned multiple times) to criticise my position, to claim I was socially lacking in confidence (on the contrary, I am very confident socially, or 'dominant' as Andrew Bennett once described me), and generally on the attack. Anyway, after complaints he's clearly been told to back off by his bosses, because all he was doing was making me look good, and increasing people's support for me. I am not myself a domain catcher like many on Acorn, but I get on well with many people there, and I am a moderator (except during this election period). But I digress. My point is that Nominet do not want me elected (and with the vote weighting system and the sitting Namesco candidate my chances this year are challenging - next year there are two places available and 34% might get me on the Board - this year it's one place so I need 51% and there's a good deal of insider alliances among the largest companies). But I am standing, and I have some good pledges from top 20 registrars, and more further down the company size, which has been touching, so the outcome is still open. One thing that can still happen is that if I am elected, the Board can refuse to appoint me. That would look ugly, but it's possible.
But 'what could I do?' and how would I go about it?
1. I live not far from Oxford, so my agenda would be to be very regular in attendance at Nominet in person, building relationships, drawing on knowledge, and embedding and colonising myself there. I'd want to participate in initiatives around Public Benefit because that is often demonstrably good, and I know it means a lot to some staff. I would want to try to support and encourage openness of opinion, humour, decency. The goal would be to build a climate and resistance of a kind, based on the powerful moral principle that people matter and deserve respect, both inside and outside the company. Call that soft diplomacy.
Simultaneously, I want (and I have a fiduciary duty and right) to have access to all minutes of all committees and meetings. I want to 'record' what I find, on grounds of accountability. I will be keeping a private record of my whole three years, if elected. And after that, well let's just say, I'm a novelist (working on 4 young adult novels right now in my spare time, and my writing has previously been featured in Sunday magazines, and on the BBC). Anyway, not a best-seller yet, but I write. So a long-term spin-off of being 'inside' Nominet might be how best I can communicate that experience in the future. Accountability always accompanies responsibility (or should). Nominet has been given a unique and privileged platform, as the steward of the UK's namespace (part of vital national infrastructure, important to individuals, communities, charities, services, clubs, education, healthcare etc) and that should be the primary purpose and duty of Nominet. It's part of what you provide too at Krystal. There's real responsibility for the way it can benefit people's lives. That's something I just don't feel in giant companies like GoDaddy - that connection with communities, and what the internet is really for.
Then in terms of actual power in the Boardroom, being real, they would seek to marginalise me to a couple of committees, but what I can do is call out, challenge, dissent, and by keeping up connections with members and the nation of internet users (through media and engagement) I can introduce sense of fear of my actual influence and sort of hidden power. Now I would seek to do that intelligently - through smiling friendly good nature, but like Chaucer's "smiler with the knife under the cloak" I would also be hard as iron on facts and detail and critique. I'm already savouring my first meeting with Russell the CEO, because I will be friendly as anything, but I will tell him straight to his face 'I think your free registration policy, which facilitated and allowed the mass-registrations was a really poor judgment, and frankly a disgrace.' So they will have to learn that I don't play the corporate game uncritically, and I'm likely to find any managerial posturing or power-play facile and not always to be taken seriously. (People have to manage - I've managed schools and prisons - but people matter and values matter and open disagreement matters.) So I will want them to fear me a little, in the knowledge of the moral support I have behind me in the community. To be honest if I am elected and displace Kelly, the sitting Namesco director (against whom I have nothing personally) they would be totally shocked, because they just don't expect that to happen. And they may be right (I acknowledge that to be respectful to the process).
2. I mentioned platforms in the public view. In the past, I found platforms in the public view, with opportunities for people to join in, were really valuable ways of building (constructive) opposition to create counter-narrative to what the insider cliques wanted to be presented to the world, all as shiny and one direction as a GoDaddy website. With the .info fiasco, it was my website, Bob Connor's website, the IcannWatch website (where I was one of the main contributors), and a number of forums. There was also the 'At Large' which at the time I was elected to what was then 'Icann at Large' was a one-person one-vote internet users' group. In the end ICANN crushed that within its own organisation, and replaced it with approved 'delegates'. But given that Nominet is supposed to be serving the UK from its privileged position, there could be a case for building both a kind of NominetWatch (maybe find a better name) or a national internet users' group tasked with monitoring governance of domains. I think what I am saying is that being an opposition Director inside Nominet has challenges, because of internal power-play, but that changes if a platform is created external to Nominet, or a combination of platforms, and ways of drawing in tech and general media. Then suddenly there's a counter-narrative, an alternative agenda, a policing of what Nominet does. And it re-states the principle that, actually, Nominet primarily exists for the people of the UK and its namespace. If some of those platforms emerge, then an 'opposition' Director then has an authority based on a second mandate.
3. Thirdly, I mentioned 'good players'. There are individuals and companies that don't dance to the corporate tune, and I think a primary aim should be to win back Nominet to that constituency. Engagement: Nominet is feeble on member engagement, because it doesn't really truly want awkward views, which engagement can introduce, it wants to get on with running its own agenda its own way. So one initiative might be to build a member community that is independent of Nominet, run by the members, and engaging other industry people, but which develops as a 'voice' of the members to increasingly monitor and in a way police what Nominet does. I admit ideas like this are pin-balling, so I don't claim all of them would be right. However, a lot of people want a different way to what Nominet has become, and what it might become in the future. So an alternative voice, platforms, mindset could help create the challenge to wrest the UK namespace free of its present controllers. Of course that would not happen overnight. However, getting back to what I would do: I would aim, as a Director, to straddle my roles inside the company with involvement and engagement outside, speaking publicly about many of these issues, and what the namespace is for, and championing exemplar companies."
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