Nominet announces programme for evolving the .uk domain name space

[Retired_Member38]

So let's say as Nominet have recently outlined.

I have a list of sites that are reasonably important to me. Under the current proposal I'll qualify for the .uk in most of them. Given its only £5, I'll certainly take every one I'm entitled to.

I have a bunch of random sites on my server that I do very little with. The domains themselves had no real cash value - the only value in them is the site age/links. Given I am 100% certain I will never do anything with these sites... I won't take the .uk versions. If anyone else wants to build a site on them it'll have zero effect on me, so not even worth £5.

There are a few specific ones that I'd like, but will lose out on. They're not essential to me - I'll make low 4 figure offers for them, if I get them cool, if not thats fine.

 

[websaway]

I have a list of sites that are reasonably important to me. Under the current proposal I'll qualify for the .uk in most of them. Given its only £5, I'll certainly take every one I'm entitled to.

I have a bunch of random sites on my server that I do very little with. The domains themselves had no real cash value - the only value in them is the site age/links. Given I am 100% certain I will never do anything with these sites... I won't take the .uk versions. If anyone else wants to build a site on them it'll have zero effect on me, so not even worth £5.

There are a few specific ones that I'd like, but will lose out on. They're not essential to me - I'll make low 4 figure offers for them, if I get them cool, if not thats fine.

I'll ask the question again then.
Based on your experience to date.

In the future if .uk is introduced within nominets current proposal, when you register a new name, what would be your strategy regarding registering other uk domain extensions identicle to the name you registered ?

 

[Retired_Member38]

You already know the answer to that. Given we can't tell how .UK is going to turn out in the long run, and on the assumption that any new projects I'm building would be done with one eye on having them turn into big brands long term, I'd be buying .co.uk, .com and .uk.

I would only buy one .co.uk / .uk if I was doing something throwaway, or something I didn't particularly care about. Or using for testing purposes. If I was just putting my family photos on a domain for relatives to look at for example, I wouldn't buy 2 domains.

 

[philiporchard]

Has anyone had an email from Nominet regarding this today entitled "Nominet Consultation on a revised .uk Registrar Agreement"?

Looks like plenty of supporting documents to go through.

 

[Edwin]

Has anyone had an email from Nominet regarding this today entitled "Nominet Consultation on a revised .uk Registrar Agreement"?

Looks like plenty of supporting documents to go through.

Yes. They're very comprehensive (i.e. there's a lot of material, but it seems to cover everything and there are copious notes as well). It's a bit of a slog, but probably worth working through (I've got about 1/3 of the way so far)

 

[monaghan]

I think that defensive registration in that direction are very rare
and not needed if you look at the intended use of a .org.uk.

However on my continued look into .org.uk's there are many .org.uk's
that have defensively registered the equivalent .co.uk
including of course Nominet itself.

One of the charities I work with took my suggestion many years ago to register the .co.uk to prevent squatting whilst continuing to use the .org.uk for the image presented by .org.uk

 

[Marcoose]

It does look acceptable. It looks like they incorporated the bulk of the changes I suggested in my counter-proposal to their original direct.uk fiasco document.

Let's be very clear: there is NO WAY to roll out .uk without disadvantaging someone. So if you start from the idea that there will be a .uk, then what Nominet have put on the table this time around is close to the least worst way of implementing it. It favours the "right" interests (those who have put in the time and the money to stay invested in the namespace for years/decades) and doesn't create a crazy extra tax (at .co.uk-equivalent registration/renewal costs, the pricing's fair enough).

The biggest "winners"* are the portfolio holders who got in at the very beginning and held their nerve all the way through to today. Make no mistake, some of the larger portfolio holders are in it for well over £1,000,000 in cumulative renewal fees by now. Indeed, I imagine there must be a few nudging close to the 8 figures in "sunk" costs. I get the impression that some of the people posting on this thread have literally no idea at all of the magnitude of the investment a lot of the early adopters have had to put in to get to their current situation.

*and rightfully so

To be fair though, Edwin, how much have these "early adopters" made from selling to third parties in the mean time? If they've spent 1m on renewals and haven't made 10 x that over the last 15+ years then....

 

[anthony]

I wonder whether there will have been cases of the same co.uk and org.uk being registered on the same day to two different registrants. If so, and if the registrations occured back in the mid 1990's, will Nominet have the timestamps?

And will they place any credence on it, being prenoms?

 

[Stephen]

Numbers?

I wonder whether there will have been cases of the same co.uk and org.uk being registered on the same day to two different registrants. If so, and if the registrations occured back in the mid 1990's, will Nominet have the timestamps?

I have only seen same registrant so far (or at least same owner) on same date, but yes there will be such cases.

Nominet should be able to run a script on their database, to find occurances like this and ascertain how many trhere are.

With version 1 .uk, I asked them to run some investigative scripts for me, to guage how many lossers and winners they would be but they declined my requests!

Lets hope they can provide some numbers and detail this time rather than headline scare monger numbers with no detail, like they did with the duplicate number of domains!

 

[max_rk]

My take

Its interesting to see full V2 proposal but user confusion part is only partly solved (vs V1) I think.

To make it better , only .co.uk registrants should have rights to .uk because both tlds are seen or will be seen as primary business tlds. Any sane person would get .uk with their .co.uk and that will minimise confusion for users.

.org.uk, me.uk, ltd.uk is not fit for purpose and its not primary business tlds. It should have no rights.

By grandfathering .uk to existing registrants Nominet acknowledging that registrants have rights. Insisting existing registrants to pay for .uk is not right, this is second charge. In most cases .uk domain will be forwarded to older domain anyway.

As long as the registrants keeps both domains (.uk and .co.uk), they should pay only one fee.

Its only fair.

Those that chooses not to register their .uk will increase domain pool which is being sought by Nominet it seems.

Over time users will become accustomed to .uk and more .co.uk -.uk splits will occur.

The question is how Nominet will succeed to notify the existing registrants to get the .uk to minimise the user confusion.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Max, so under this plan of yours how many charities and major tourist attractions will lose their equivalent .uk domain to someone not even using the .co.uk version, and do you think that will be an acceptable solution to anyone outside of the domaining world?

Its ridiculous to say other domain extensions 'aren't fit for purpose' - they clearly are... loads of people bought them and used them within the rules.

 

[max_rk]

Max, so under this plan of yours how many charities and major tourist attractions will lose their equivalent .uk domain to someone not even using the .co.uk version, and do you think that will be an acceptable solution to anyone outside of the domaining world?

Its ridiculous to say other domain extensions 'aren't fit for purpose' - they clearly are... loads of people bought them and used them within the rules.

Those that have org.uk, me.uk, ... and don’t have .co.uk already lost the battle on fist come basis. If that was their priority they should have registered, purchased or DRS’ed their chosen .co.uk.

From reading this thread I understand that you have org.uk domains so perhaps you are subjective. I am trying to think what would be right for wider user base.


Only .co.uk fit for purpose because its primary business tld, most similar to what .uk is likely to be.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Those that have org.uk, me.uk, ... and don’t have .co.uk already lost the battle on fist come basis. If that was their priority they should have registered, purchased or DRS’ed their chosen .co.uk.

Please explain how sciencemuseum.org.uk lost on a 'first come basis'. They've had their site for 14 years. The .co.uk was dropped and reregistered last year. It seems the real museum should be a pretty clear winner on a 'first come basis', surely?

From reading this thread I understand that you have org.uk domains so perhaps you are subjective. I am trying to think what would be right for wider user base.

Do you think the 'wider user base', would like to see domains like this one (and literally hundreds/thousands of other charities and public attractions) handed over to .co.uk owners, who in comparison to the .org.uk owners are doing zero of value to the public with their version of the domain?

I think I'm one of the only few people who are being subjective on this subject - I've clearly posted what my domains of value are, and anyone can see which I'll win or lose. I have also openly suggested my favoured routes for dealing with this, none of which would be the biggest win or me personally.

 

[Edwin]

Those that have org.uk, me.uk, ... and don’t have .co.uk already lost the battle on fist come basis. If that was their priority they should have registered, purchased or DRS’ed their chosen .co.uk

If you have:
A) A 3 year old example.co.uk
B) A 5 year old example.org.uk
C) A 1 year old example.me.uk

Which of the above has won the battle to be "first come first served" when considering the string in front of the domain extension?

 

[max_rk]

Please explain how sciencemuseum.org.uk lost on a 'first come basis'. They've had their site for 14 years. The .co.uk was dropped and reregistered last year. It seems the real museum should be a pretty clear winner on a 'first come basis', surely?




Do you think the 'wider user base', would like to see domains like this one (and literally hundreds/thousands of other charities and public attractions) handed over to .co.uk owners, who in comparison to the .org.uk owners are doing zero of value to the public with their version of the domain?

I think I'm one of the only few people who are being subjective on this subject - I've clearly posted what my domains of value are, and anyone can see which I'll win or lose. I have also openly suggested my favoured routes for dealing with this, none of which would be the biggest win or me personally.

Domains are dropped and then registered on first come basis also. Owners of sciencemuseum.org.uk had their chance as anyone else. Maybe even at time or registration of their .org.uk.

Tough luck if there is more than one Science Museum in the country but why it should become domain name issue! Chose your name carefully in first place.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Well you might just say 'tough luck' but I don't think anyone outside of the domaining community will agree with you

 

[max_rk]

If you have:
A) A 3 year old example.co.uk
B) A 5 year old example.org.uk
C) A 1 year old example.me.uk

Which of the above has won the battle to be "first come first served" when considering the string in front of the domain extension?

A is the winner for commercial domain. If a commercial domain (.co.uk) was important to B registrant they should have gone and registered it.

UK naming space is existent. People made their choises so let’s stick with that.

 

[max_rk]

Well you might just say 'tough luck' but I don't think anyone outside of the domaining community will agree with you

World is tough for lasy i know, but how do you make distributions systems fair? Nominet have already gone first come basis path. Theoretically everyone has a chance to dropped domain.

 

[Retired_Member38]

I think oldest registrant date is fairer. It avoids the massive issue of loads of charities and so on potentially losing their domain. I know you're going to argue they should have bought the .co.uk at the same time for reg fee - its a very fair point, they should have.

But they didn't. And I think if you want to have any semblance of fairness and doing this to promote internet in the UK etc... you need to make an allowance for the fact some of them didn't. Going on earliest registrant seems to me to be fairest way to ensure we have the least number of bad distributions of the .uk. You'll get some sure... but it will be significantly less than just having the .co.uk handed everything.

 

[Edwin]

A is the winner for commercial domain. If a commercial domain (.co.uk) was important to B registrant they should have gone and registered it.

UK naming space is existent. People made their choises so let’s stick with that.

V2 is not talking about .uk being "for business" any more.

You're arguing against the V1 position.

Now, .uk is being presented as being for everyone. Which makes sense, as it's a completely unrestricted extension so anyone CAN register it.