Nominet employees

[Jac]

I am a bit confused. All I said - in response to Charlie's question - was that Nominet's authority stemmed from being set up out of JANET. I added that there was no direct authority from government, but that I don't think there was anything to suggest that government had any problem with the status quo. And I said that I did not see any point in going over old ground with JAC about any wider issues that might arise from that.

Now apparently that amounts to my being "rightous"

Beasty.... that is not what I meant. I was simply expounding on how people don't always look at the big picture when criticising what has now been established for 10 years. It was not a direct dig about your righteousness. Sorry you thought it was aimed at you; such is the frailty of the written word.

I would take issue with you when you say that .uk is owned by all stakeholders. I agree that it should be - but as we speak it is owned by Nominet - a company owned by about 3,000 members.

The database is certainly Nominet's property, but I would refer you to the Memorandum of Association which states:

The objects for which the Company is established are:

3.1 to act as the Network Information Centre for the United Kingdom and manage and control the use of the Internet domain ".UK";

3.2 subject to all necessary consents, and to the co-operation of the governmental and non-governmental organisations concerned, to manage and control the use of sub-domains under the Internet domain ".UK" (whether directly or by means of sub-contracts, agents or any other means);

3.3 to establish, publish and administer rules for the use of the domain and sub-domains referred to in clauses 3.1 and 3.2;

3.4 to maintain a register of Internet domain names;

3.5 to establish and implement procedures for authorising changes to the register;

3.6 to provide facilities for searching the register; and

3.7 to operate a domain name service;

in each case on a commercial basis.

"the United Kingdom" means Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man; and any other territories included from time to time within the designation "GB" in ISO 3166 (the International Standard for Country Codes).

The full Memorandum can be found here.

In my humble opinion, there isn't a word about ownership of .uk. Indeed, I would suggest the Memorandum of Association makes it clear that Nominet does what it does "subject to all necessary consents".

So I don't think Nominet has ever been arrogant enough to assume it can simply own .uk. That would be kinda like claiming ownership of the land itself. As an aside, I remember reading somewhere that it holds .uk in trust for the community, but I don't have time to dig it out now.

Regards
James Conaghan

 

[Beasty]

Beasty.... that is not what I meant. I was simply expounding on how people don't always look at the big picture when criticising what has now been established for 10 years. It was not a direct dig about your righteousness. Sorry you thought it was aimed at you; such is the frailty of the written word.

Fair enough. After all we have enough things to argue about where we don't agree - we don't need to fall out over something where we seem to be at idem.

The database is certainly Nominet's property, but I would refer you to the Memorandum of Association which states:

The objects for which the Company is established are:

3.1 to act as the Network Information Centre for the United Kingdom and manage and control the use of the Internet domain ".UK";

3.2 subject to all necessary consents, and to the co-operation of the governmental and non-governmental organisations concerned, to manage and control the use of sub-domains under the Internet domain ".UK" (whether directly or by means of sub-contracts, agents or any other means);

3.3 to establish, publish and administer rules for the use of the domain and sub-domains referred to in clauses 3.1 and 3.2;

3.4 to maintain a register of Internet domain names;

3.5 to establish and implement procedures for authorising changes to the register;

3.6 to provide facilities for searching the register; and

3.7 to operate a domain name service;

in each case on a commercial basis.

"the United Kingdom" means Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man; and any other territories included from time to time within the designation "GB" in ISO 3166 (the International Standard for Country Codes).

The full Memorandum can be found here.

In my humble opinion, there isn't a word about ownership of .uk. Indeed, I would suggest the Memorandum of Association makes it clear that Nominet does what it does "subject to all necessary consents".

So I don't think Nominet has ever been arrogant enough to assume it can simply own .uk. That would be kinda like claiming ownership of the land itself. As an aside, I remember reading somewhere that it holds .uk in trust for the community, but I don't have time to dig it out now.

That's certainly a fair and intersting point. That said, ownership of a database of 5 million records that amounts to all the .uk domains registered - along with "manage and control" .uk - might well be thought of as giving it de facto ownership of .uk.

 

[Jac]

That's certainly a fair and intersting point. That said, ownership of a database of 5 million records that amounts to all the .uk domains registered - along with "manage and control" .uk - might well be thought of as giving it de facto ownership of .uk.

I suppose the term "de facto" (if you mean "in practice") can apply here, but I have to be pedantic and say that Nominet clearly accepts (in its Memorandum) that it will do what it does "subject to all necessary consents, and to the co-operation of the governmental and non-governmental organisations concerned".

Personally I believe this applies moreso today than it did in 1996 because there is much more interaction between Nominet and the DTI, OFT, Home Office and Parliament, than there was previously. So I think it is fair to say that Nominet is doing its best to ensure it has all the "necessary consents" before proceeding in any particular direction.

Regards
James Conaghan

 

[Jay Daley]

I am a bit confused.

In order to understand how Nominet ended up with .uk you have to remember that the Internet pre-2000 was the mass phenomenon that it is now.

A quick potted history

1. Academics in the UK began to use a hierarchical naming scheme for hosts, that looks a bit like DNS but in reverse, e.g. uk.ac.ic.machine

2. Simultaneously DNS is being invented in the US.

3. Jon Postel ends up running the root and creates country codes based on ISO 3166. He gives control over it to the academics were doing things over here (Peter Kirstein). They told Jon Postel they wanted .uk instead (or maybe this was later).

4. The Naming Committee end up doing it, a group of LINX members who judge each application on merit.

5. It all gets too much for the Naming Committee.

6. Willie Black, now at UKERNA and some others organise a big meeting of the Internet industry (about 100 companies and institutions) to propose Nominet to run it.

7. Industry agrees but builds certain clauses into Nominet constitution.

8. Naming Committee transfer over to Nominet in Aug 1996.

 

[Jay Daley]

So my point (which I'd forgotten by the time I got to the end of the last message), is

We derives our authority by being representative of the local Internet community and being accepted as such by the UK government.

The local community has grown considerably over the years and has become an even broader church. As a result it will never be possible to please all the people all of the time. But so long as there are open, transparent and responsive policy processes then it will continue to have that authority.