Nominet announces programme for evolving the .uk domain name space

[crazihos]

Regarding grandfather rights...

Would it not be fairer to have a first historical registration date wins regardless of drops.

That way which ever extention of a name was concieved first would win - that to me seems a fairer solution regardless of current owner or history in between.

 

[JamesMac]

James, I may be wrong but let me guess. You own 1, few or many .org.uk domains and your pay day has arrived?

I don't have any .org.uk's that would be eligible for this (as far as I know). I have a bunch of dropped .co.uk's that I will lose rights for as well. I was against .UK's from their first proposal.

With that being said these new guidelines for Nominet have seen a complete 180 in their policy. They have reduced the price to the £5 mark and also listened to us to give rights to .co.uk owners in most cases. This will fix around 95% of complaints they would have received. You have to respect them for this.

The only people whining about this are the drop catchers who have built their whole business around selling dropped domains. The .co.uk's are still going to hold their value for the near future so I would look to diversify in the long run.

 

[Murray]

This will fix around 95% of complaints they would have received. You have to respect them for this.

As said earlier, maybe they made the first proposal so bad just to make this new one seem very palatable in comparison.

One question I have is who does direct.uk benefit? where is the need for it? who wants it and why.

 

[monaghan]

One question I have is who does direct.uk benefit? where is the need for it? who wants it and why.

Obviously nobody here has the definitive answer, but here's my suggested answer...

Nominet, there is no need for it, Nominet board to increase the bonus pot

My question is how do they justify raking in all this cash when they are already so cash rich that they have to give away millions to the trust?

 

[Bailey]

As said earlier, maybe they made the first proposal so bad just to make this new one seem very palatable in comparison.

One question I have is who does direct.uk benefit? where is the need for it? who wants it and why.

Given the 'Proposed' Compliance rules even for a straight/new registration. I guess it will call it a halt to the current drop system and the captures..

Possibly by using random drop-dates etc.

I don't wish to hark -on, but I do think many have underestimated how much that has played a part..

 

[Retired_Member38]

I agree with you that 95% of registrants will be happy but given there's 10 million names registered, 5% or even 1% represents a chunk of unhappy people.

Any rule applied across everyone, is always going to have some people who are either unhappy and/or being treated unfairly.

To use one of my own as an example, we own carinsurance.org.uk. We invested a massive amount of money in this one alone. We then expanded our car insurance business into Monkey dot co dot uk also. This is a real business - employs 5 people full time, then a variety of other secondary employment (web designer, currently hiring 2 separate PR companies, we outsource various other things etc). So we're investing a hell of a lot of money, and creating employment. We're also donating a lot of money to charity directly through this business (£60,000 donated as of right now).

I would think if you used any reasonable measure of fairness, our investment , job creation and charity donations would see us getting the new car insurance domain if created. Yet its going to be handed to Dr Dolittle who's done literally nothing with his .co.uk

 

[GreyWing]

The perfect scenario that I haven't heard anyone ever argue against is still there...

Turn .co.uk into .uk, have .co.uk resolve to .uk for 2-3 years so people get used to it, then in the third year have a standard holding page on the .co.uk type-ins that warns people that .co.uk is ending in a year, please type in .uk. In the 4th year it gets shut down. Business can renew stationary etc in that 4 years, no problem or cost to anyone.

That's it, all problems solved. .org.uk is still the second tier, not the third as will happen behind .uk .co.uk . That way., nobody has won or lost, everyone is happy. No uneducated members of the public are left unaware of what is going on and won't risk losing out because they are concentrating on their business and not following the domain industry.

I genuinely don't see why that solution isn't happening if people at Nominet are hell bent on bringing out .uk . The costs of it were estimated at about 10k to programme Nominet's systems to make it happen.

 

[Lovekraft]

Quite simply there will be winners, and there will be losers. Is it fair though? Some lucky ".me.uk" owner who regged a one word generic for a blog might find he is in for a nice windfall when he finds out he can then get that same term in the new .uk space because it predates other extensions giving him a "premium" domain for reg fee. That would be a nice surprise for them I'm sure. Even .co.uk owners, suddenly finding themselves with 2 premium domains of the same term which they can choose to sell as a double and manipulate an even higher asking price than before when they just had the .co.uk.

Nominet are almost operating like a lottery, handing out free (reg fee) premiums to those lucky enough. But more importantly there really shouldn't be any losers at all, Nominet shouldn't be putting anyone into such a position, wether it is an individual, a small or large business, nobody should be losing out after investing in their domain, wether it was at reg fee or having bought on the market and that's why launching it will always be flawed amongst many other reasons which some who were so vocal about have gone very quiet about now.

BTW - I don't have much to lose personally, maybe i would "gain", i can't be sure. But nobody should be gaining anything at the expense of others, even if they are a higher proportion. The biggest winner will still be Nominet from all this.

 

[websaway]

The perfect scenario that I haven't heard anyone ever argue against is still there...

Turn .co.uk into .uk, have .co.uk resolve to .uk for 2-3 years so people get used to it, then in the third year have a standard holding page on the .co.uk type-ins that warns people that .co.uk is ending in a year, please type in .uk. In the 4th year it gets shut down. Business can renew stationary etc in that 4 years, no problem or cost to anyone.

That's it, all problems solved. .org.uk is still the second tier, not the third as will happen behind .uk .co.uk . That way., nobody has won or lost, everyone is happy. No uneducated members of the public are left unaware of what is going on and won't risk losing out because they are concentrating on their business and not following the domain industry.

I genuinely don't see why that solution isn't happening if people at Nominet are hell bent on bringing out .uk . The costs of it were estimated at about 10k to programme Nominet's systems to make it happen.

Nominet lose because they have already worked out what new income stream will result from the proposals. I have not seen one person post on this forum about the costs to the general consumer ( wonder why ) they are the real losers.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Firstly, they're great looking sites, the best I've seen on here so well done.

I take on board what you say about being unable to make everyone happy but given that this release is un-necessary, there's no need to upset anyone. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

As for your .org.uk, from a purely pragmatic point of view, you developed a web site using an inappropriate extension which Nominet have turned a blind eye to but in your case there's also an earlier registrant so I can't see there's any reason why you should get the .uk other than your web sites design is leagues better

You're winning and losing here but can I ask, would you be so calm if monkey.org.uk was registered in 1996 and you was about to lose monkey.co.uk as well?

On the .org.uk issue, I never actually wanted to build on that domain - I wanted the .co.uk but the owner was being beyond unrealistic. I appreciate that its his property and he can do with it as he pleases, but when someone is offering a deal where I do all the work and invest 6 or 7 figures, and he is allowed to kick me out and retain 100% ownership after a year or two, clearly its not viable.

So I was forced onto the .org.uk because of him. There isn't anything in the rules to say we couldn't build a commercial site on it, so thats what we done. It would really be a kick in the balls in a scenario like that where I risked 100's of thousands of my own money developing on a secondary domain because the .co.uk owner was not being realistic, only to see the same guy being handed another premium domain


If Monkey.org.uk was going to take Monkey.uk from me, then no clearly I wouldn't be happy with that. But I would just suck it up and either buy it from him if he wanted to deal at a reasonable price, or ignore him if not. I have a real business, he has a parked domain. So anyone searching for "monkey" or "monkey insurance" or whatever will land on my site just fine. I assume if he did get monkey.uk his pricing would be horrendous - he's already asking for $7,800 for his .org.uk. I don't have any history on that domain or pricing but it seems horrendously expensive to me, and perhaps priced that way purely because I have a big site on the .co.uk. If his intention is holding me to ransom, it'll be a long wait. I wouldn't pay $780 for it.

 

[AssetDomains]

The perfect scenario that I haven't heard anyone ever argue against is still there...

Turn .co.uk into .uk, have .co.uk resolve to .uk for 2-3 years so people get used to it, then in the third year have a standard holding page on the .co.uk type-ins that warns people that .co.uk is ending in a year, please type in .uk. In the 4th year it gets shut down. Business can renew stationary etc in that 4 years, no problem or cost to anyone.

I don't even see the need to put a time limit on it. Make it so they are permanently linked. Then let the owner choose to resolve whichever one they chose for as long as they wish.

Is there no way for us members to force nominet to add this / any other release ideas to the upcoming proposal and stop this dragging on for proposal after proposal until they get their way

 

[GreyWing]

Is there no way for us members to force nominet to add this / any other release ideas to the upcoming proposal and stop this dragging on for proposal after proposal until they get their way

There is still the members who signed the EGM form, around 230. But the idea was to wait until there was something concrete from Nominet to argue against before invoking it. But I guess the question is, how many more consultations and uncertainty is there. Could go on for years this.

There is still other action going on against the board, so it is far from being in their hands to do as they will. But it maybe that we all need to unite behind one idea if we are to positively take action like an idea that I and others have proposed.

Maybe we will produce our own consultation that mirrors their questions but with our proposals????

 

[JamesMac]

One question I have is who does direct.uk benefit? where is the need for it? who wants it and why.

I think the question you have to ask yourself is do you think the .UK market will be worth more than the .co.uk market in the long run to global investors.

If your answer is yes - which I think to be the case, then it is easy to justify why Nominet is releasing it. Businesses built on .UK's once the market has settled will be worth more globally hence everyone should benefit. At this point you can start debating whether or not the way they are releasing it is fair.

If your answer is no then I feel it is hard to justify why Nominet is releasing .UK for the good of the market.

 

[websaway]

Unless you're a portfolio owner, the cost increase is so insignificant that it doesn't matter. if you can't afford £10 a year for your business or blog or whatever, then owning a domain is the least of your worries.

You are making the assumption that businesses only own one name and manage it themselves, most businesses don't know how to buy a name.
And what about adding the new .uk to their signage etc it's all a cost that they will see absolutely no benefit from.

 

[Sam]

Sean dont bring my monkey into this :mrgreen:

You're winning and losing here but can I ask, would you be so calm if monkey.org.uk was registered in 1996 and you was about to lose monkey.co.uk as well?

 

[Retired_Member38]

http://www.nominet.org.uk/uk-domain...mes/uk-domain-subdomains/second-level-domains

I understand what you say on your other points but that's a much broader discussion and you wouldn't get the answer you were looking for on here. Also, the horse has bolted on a lot of those discussion.

http://www.nominet.org.uk/uk-domain-names/registering-uk-domain/choosing-domain-name/rules

I'll try and not sidetrack this valid Nominet discussion with a side issue, but nominet do say 'intended for' and 'commonly used by' etc - they'd like you to use it for one thing, but they aren't saying you can't do something else with it. So unless they outright ban it, they can't then hold it against you later if you do choose to use it for something else. There can't really be any middle ground as far as rules go... something is either allowed or isn't. I would say with the current wording, it clearly is allowed to do what I (and thousands of other people) are doing

 

[foz]

I recall the Auda.org.au cancelling a whole lot of .org.au's once because they were being used for commercial purposes. Then again AUDA are a hardcore fanatical bunch.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Sean dont bring my monkey into this :mrgreen:

Lol, I didn't realise the owner was on here. I'm not going to buy it either way but just curious here... would it be a fair assumption that your $8000 valuation of a non commercial .org.uk was purely arrived at because the .co.uk has a reasonably big site on it? :mrgreen:

 

[Skinner]

I love this bit from the above link...

nhs.uk
This is for NHS organisations. The domain management may be contacted via [email protected].

They don't even use their domain to admin it heh.

 

[foz]

Lol, I didn't realise the owner was on here. I'm not going to buy it either way but just curious here... would it be a fair assumption that your $8000 valuation of a non commercial .org.uk was purely arrived at because the .co.uk has a reasonably big site on it? :mrgreen:

If you can afford to give £60K away, I don't see why you should being balking at such a sum, at the least negotiate.