Nominet announces programme for evolving the .uk domain name space

[websaway]

The tone of the second consultation document is light years away from the first. Nominet are bending over backwards to sound "reasonable" all the way through. Frankly, it reads even better than the summary they've teased us with for the last week or so. The questions are structured much less leadingly too. Overall, it seems they've taken all the lessons of the utter chaos surrounding V1 on board, and applied them effectively to this second round.

They still have not given any plausible benefit of the release of .uk

 

[markb]

I own Food-co-uk, I bought it to develop a food portal website, which is currently in development. I think I was a bit unlucky with this being 1 of only 2 generic names being reserved.

I did only buy the .co.uk and so this wouldn't change my plans of releasing my website this year. I'm not really losing out on much at the moment, unless the .uk extension becomes the most popular in the future, then this would cause confusion between my website and the .uk

 

[markb]

I wonder why they are only reserving certain .uk names. I notice there are lots of government websites like Education.gov.uk , which isn't on the list as being reserved.

 

[Retired_Member38]

I wonder why they are only reserving certain .uk names. I notice there are lots of government websites like Education.gov.uk , which isn't on the list as being reserved.

Its because they are reshuffling what is and isn't allowed on a .gov.uk extension. So that list of 150 were effectively going to be homeless as they can no longer use the extension they were on.

 

[Murray]

It looks that way and that makes sense to me.

although it will be interesting as you say, to see about FTR .org.uk on dropped domains for the next few months.

Close to the point for admin purposes they may have to have a cut off date in 2014 due the process raking so long.

Also interesting they left out .ac.uk and .net.uk.

I notice from a quick bit of research Denys has already been busy..

 

[murph]

Interesting that they mention possible discount for owning the pair (ie . co.uk & .uk)

"consultation asks for feedback on options such as discounting or reserving names..."

If we have to own both just to protect our brands, then some sort of discount needs to be applied surely?

 

[GreyWing]

Interesting that they mention possible discount for owning the pair (ie . co.uk & .uk)

"consultation asks for feedback on options such as discounting or reserving names..."

If we have to own both just to protect our brands, then some sort of discount needs to be applied surely?

You'd have to have them at the same registrar presumably and as it looks like accredited registrars only will be allowed to sell .uk's.. By the time you have added on the commission of 123-reg etc, not going to be a discount. Going to be a technical nightmare to make that work in my opinion.

 

[Edwin]

They still have not given any plausible benefit of the release of .uk

If you think that will stop it going ahead, I think you really need take the time to let the results of this poll sink in...
http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-do...w-likely-do-you-think-we-see-uk-go-ahead.html

It may colour your approach going forward.

 

[Edwin]

You'd have to have them at the same registrar presumably and as it looks like accredited registrars only will be allowed to sell .uk's.. By the time you have added on the commission of 123-reg etc, not going to be a discount. Going to be a technical nightmare to make that work in my opinion.

Where did you see that? Are you saying that self-managed accounts won't be able to register .uk domains? That sounds very strange...

 

[GreyWing]

If you think that will stop it going ahead, I think you really need take the time to let the results of this poll sink in...
http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-do...w-likely-do-you-think-we-see-uk-go-ahead.html

It may colour your approach going forward.

Edwin, you give up way to easy.

 

[Edwin]

Edwin, you give up way to easy.

You have to face reality as well. It was an ANONYMOUS poll with a completely straightforward, open question, posed in a venue that's highly anti-.uk, and it still shows an overwhelming majority (84%) who believe it definitely or very likely will go ahead.

Is it better to try and hold back the tide, or to seek to funnel the waters in the most productive way possible?

 

[Retired_Member38]

You have to face reality as well. It was an ANONYMOUS poll with a completely straightforward, open question, posed in a venue that's highly anti-.uk, and it still shows an overwhelming majority (84%) who believe it definitely or very likely will go ahead.

Is it though? There are plenty people here who stand to make cash from this. They know its not fair... but they're going to make out like bandits with hundreds of .uk's they own. Or failing that they're going to cash in by registering .uk's to sell on.

 

[MikeJDS]

If you think that will stop it going ahead, I think you really need take the time to let the results of this poll sink in...
http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-do...w-likely-do-you-think-we-see-uk-go-ahead.html

It may colour your approach going forward.

Maybe if the poll was worded "Should it go ahead?" the results could be very different?

Its a loaded question!

 

[Edwin]

Is it though? There are plenty people here who stand to make cash from this. They know its not fair... but they're going to make out like bandits with hundreds of .uk's they own. Or failing that they're going to cash in by registering .uk's to sell on.

There have been quite a lot of people on here who have said it shouldn't go ahead. I didn't see them voting that way. Consequently, I believe the poll reflects the reality that .uk may be "undesirable" but it's happening regardless of individual feelings about it.

And if that's the case, then the discussion is probably better served if it moves to the next level: the "how" of .uk, rather than the "if".

I will still be putting my initial objections to the whole .uk idea in my response to V2 - that's a cut and paste job from my site - but I don't expect them to have any actual effect.

 

[Retired_Member38]

There have been quite a lot of people on here who have said it shouldn't go ahead. I didn't see them voting that way. Consequently, I believe the poll reflects the reality that .uk may be "undesirable" but it's happening regardless.

But the question was "How likely do you think we are to see a .uk go ahead?". It didn't mention whether we want to see it go ahead, or whether its fair to go ahead.

If you ask me "is .uk fair?" or "do you want .uk to launch?" you're going to get two completely different answers.

 

[Edwin]

Maybe if the poll was worded "Should it go ahead?" the results could be very different?

Its a loaded question!

If you're talking about the poll I stuck in the other thread, then "Should it go ahead?" is a useless question. It says nothing about reality. We already know that a lot of people on here think "no it shouldn't".

What we didn't know is how people thought REALITY would play out (absent their own feelings about .uk). Now we sort of do.

 

[GreyWing]

You have to face reality as well. It was an ANONYMOUS poll with a completely straightforward, open question, posed in a venue that's highly anti-.uk, and it still shows an overwhelming majority (84%) who believe it definitely or very likely will go ahead.

Is it better to try and hold back the tide, or to seek to funnel the waters in the most productive way possible?

Just because everybody does something doesn't make it right, just because everybody believes something doesn't make it true.

I think I'll continue fighting against it...

 

[Edwin]

Perhaps Edwin will pin his colours to the mast. He did say he was reserving judgement till the consultation document was released.

Well here it is.

Again:
I will still be putting my initial objections to the whole .uk idea in my response to V2 - that's a cut and paste job from my site (since the objections stem from the concept of .uk, not its implementation) - but I don't expect them to have any actual effect.

 

[Edwin]

So will you be fighting the plans as you did last time?

I don't see any need to adjust my list of Pros and Cons. Well, I might tidy a couple of things, but it's basically still valid.
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/pros-and-cons.html

I'm also not going to waste a huge amount of energy on the fight. I've already formulated a position (you can see it at the above link - 100% transparency) about .uk itself, and that hasn't changed because of the release mechanism. So I can recycle stuff just fine.

Naturally, I will have far fewer objections (maybe none - I need to take some time and really digest the documents carefully) to the release mechanism V2, as it's a gigantic improvement over V1.

In short: I will oppose the release of .uk in principle, but I probably won't oppose the planned release mechanism for .uk (assuming that it is going ahead)

 

[GreyWing]

Graeme, I'm with you and this one is easier to defeat because the last proposal as much as the secondary market hated it, was 1000% fairer than these new proposals.

Cheers mate, I still think we can stop it. There are plenty of legal avenues that are open. Unfair prejudice in the companies act that needs to be explored. Derivative action that we are still ploughing on with. An EGM to allow members to stop this.

Defeatism is just laziness in my opinion.