Nominet say can have as many TAGs as like.

[FC Domains]

There is a problem with having multiple identities. You could only get away with it if you were not too successful.
I'm sure that the best catchers are under scrutiny by us, if not by Nominet.

If they are not successful, they can cheat as much as they like.

 

[grantw]

There is a problem with having multiple identities. You could only get away with it if you were not too successful.
I'm sure that the best catchers are under scrutiny by us, if not by Nominet.

If they are not successful, they can cheat as much as they like.

Totally agree - once again this all comes down to who has the best system and the way they use it. There seems to be a growing number of people with zero coding skills and even less patience complaining when they dont get the domains that they want. Can I politely suggest that you either stop moaning and put your energy into your code or go do something else

Grant

 

[grantw]

Grant, are suggesting that I haven't been polite

Not at all mate

Grant

 

[domaingenius]

I have a good idea, why doesn't everyone work on an open source name grabbing application and pool all their knowledge to build a better application that takes the fight to the people with deep pockets. Perhaps if we were lucky Jay Daley might even tell us about the 'tricks' that Nominet know the really successful people use to grab names. That way it would then be a real level playing field and greater than average success would be very hard to explain away, also Nominet's phones would go silent and the World would be a better place

Great idea.

DG

 

[tifosi]

Edward, is it correct that multiple tags under one membership still have the same automaton limits as a single tag under one membership?

yes, linked tags

 

[Jay Daley]

Well I just spoke to "Gail" at Nominet who advises,in fact insists, that there is no limit on the number of TAGS and DAC memberships that a single person/company may hold and may use them all to try and catch one name.
I asked whether Nominet did not think that it was unfair that a very small number of speculators like TagNames,M Zaffer, Rimiyvadis etc held a large proportion of the best domain names.Gail said "It it not Nominet's role to Police the system ". Asked why they do not auction the domain names she said "Nominet do not want to be seen to be making a profit".

You appear to be misinterpreting what was said in order to cause controversy. Let me put you right:

1. Yes you can have multiple tags but not as many as you want and they are all linked together for limit calculations on the Automaton.

2. Some people do end up with multiple memberships through acquisition and we give them time to amalgamate them into one. However we link those memberships and tags for limit calculations.

3. We only allow one DAC service per group of linked tags, whether or not they are all under the same membership.

4. We operate on a "first registered first served" basis, which is how some companies end up with more of the "best names" than others. They are just "better" at getting names than others. No conspiracy there.

5. We do not auction the names because that is our policy, which has been consulted on with the local Internet community extensively.

Finally, if you intend to spread mis-information about us in the press then I suggest you talk to our in-house solicitors first.

 

[Jay Daley]

Why bang your head against a brick wall, all those T&C's are b*llocks, they are so easy to circumvent that they aren't worth the web space they're wrote on. if I have a membership and my wife is a director of a limited company that also has a membership and my son is a director of another limited company that also has a membership. The only provable link is that we're related, it doesn't prove that we are part of a group of catchers and doing so would be very difficult if not impossible.

In the past people have tried similar things and we have caught them and linked their tags. However when we do link tags like this we don't tell people so you would not know about it. We also don't need any proof to link tags. If we think tags should be linked then we will do so and ask those people affected to prove that we shouldn't.

 

[Jay Daley]

You can moan all you like Colin, that doesn't mean that Nominet will do anything. I think the truth is that Nominet aren't interested in catching people cheating, people ringing every five minutes of the day to moan about 'cheating' is a bigger headache than someone using three tags. If I'm wrong about this then perhaps someone could point to one incident of a TAG being revoked for the reasons we're discussing here.

We receive many complaints and we investigate every single one. If there is any evidence of abuse then we act. However we don't make the results public so you wouldn't know about it.

Perhaps you should find out how we operate before being so rude about us.

 

[rob]

The reason we are in domains is to make a couple of quid, opensource systems etc wont happen because of that. Accusations and the back biting that people do is a result of that, they miss out on names and therefore miss easy cash.

If you are not into being greedy will you take £10 for forsale.co.uk? You can double your money and donate the proceeds to charity if you so wish

 

[aqls]

Currently the system is a bit like a software writing competition without explicitly saying so and without any proper rules.

Lots of hush, hush, trust us, and a few rules, but not a proper ruleset.

The team with the best software makes loads of money, numbers 3 and 4 get diddle.

Anyone is free to learn to write software, therefore everyone has a fair chance of entry to the system, therefore it is considered completely fair - The prize is alot greater than even some of the most publicised cracking competitions.

I remember one in Australia offering $10,000 to the one who could crack their system. It was very popular and the winner got lots of publicity in the field.

The prize here is potentially a million pounds and upwards.

As far as multiple entries are concerned, for this sort of prize I would be unhappy about rules stating that the organisers decide arbitrarily which tags should be joined and then if they make a mistake they have no liability for any lost registrations they have caused.

That's just cowboy stuff.

And for a million pound prize I would look closer at the rules. The rules say:
they are [not] a “Connected Person” within the meaning of s.346 of the Companies Act 1985 (as amended)

http://www.nic.uk/disputes/terms/Anti-avoidance/

The Act defines a connected person as:

96B Persons discharging managerial responsibilities and connected persons
(1) For the purposes of this Part, a “person discharging managerial responsibilities within
an issuer” means—
(a) a director of an issuer falling within section 96A(1)(c)(i) or (ii); or
(b) a senior executive of such an issuer who—
(i) has regular access to inside information relating, directly or indirectly, to the
issuer, and
(ii) has power to make managerial decisions affecting the future development and
business prospects of the issuer.
(2) A person “connected” with a person discharging managerial responsibilities within an
issuer means—
(a) a “connected person” within the meaning in section 346 of the Companies Act
1985(a) (reading that section as if any reference to a director of a company were a
reference to a person discharging managerial responsibilities within an issuer);
(b) a relative of a person discharging managerial responsibilities within an issuer, who,
on the date of the transaction in question, has shared the same household as that
person for at least 12 months;
(c) a body corporate in which—
(i) a person discharging managerial responsibilities within an issuer, or
(ii) any person connected with him by virtue of subsection (a) or (b),
is a director or a senior executive who has the power to make management
decisions affecting the future development and business prospects of that body corporate.

See:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/4A0/AD/MAD_regs240205.pdf

So If you have lived with members of your family in the same household for the last 12 months then you can't use them as a tag, and you can't use yourself as a tag if you registered a tag with your company.

But you can legitimately have your mate do it, or your girl/boyfriend, or even another existing tag holder. That's the rules.

If Nominet has some hush hush different method of interpreting these published rules then I imagine they are legitimately opening themselves up for legal complaint, despite any other disclaimers they may have slipped in anywhere.

The prize is just too big to play fast and loose with.

As for fairness.

I don't happen to think that it should be a winner/best techie wins all situation. I think that is undemocratic and certainly in no way randomly distributes these things.

It just makes a few people rich.

Nominet may not care.

I think they should.

I think that it should be Nominet that helps and funds the Open Source software and perhaps insists that everyone uses that software unchanged.

Or they even distribute their own software at £100 per pop. The techies have already all spent alot more than that on their own systems so it is by no means an (unreasonably) 'profit making' scheme.

Thereby making it a much more fairly distributed system.

This, if they think about it, is what Nominet should be striving for.


-aqls-

 

[rob]

Your idea of a £100 system, plus Tag and Membership already raises the barrier to entry to high to those who cannot write off £600 to catch a single name. Or is it 'fairer' as it means you get names as well? What about Joe Bloggs on 123-reg checking the whois every five minutes for the last two months only to be beaten, its not 'fair' on him is it?

While we are at getting Nominet to write me some kickass catching software, does anyone know the address of the Oxford dole office?

 

[mreeves]

While you are at it aqls why not suggest that nominet takes back all those prime generics registered speculatively back in 95/96 and gives them to those that buy a winning nominet branded lottery ticket. Get a grip. First come first served is perfectly fair. Spend more time on your drop catching scripts and less on sour grapes.

 

[aqls]

Your idea of a £100 system, plus Tag and Membership already raises the barrier to entry to high to those who cannot write off £600 to catch a single name. Or is it 'fairer' as it means you get names as well? What about Joe Bloggs on 123-reg checking the whois every five minutes for the last two months only to be beaten, its not 'fair' on him is it?

While we are at getting Nominet to write me some kickass catching software, does anyone know the address of the Oxford dole office?

£10 quid, £1000 quid. It's fairly arbitrary and not the issue.
I get names anyway - I buy them off dropcatchers.
Joe can enter too. He is unlikely to get a good name in any distributed system unless he becomes at least a bit more knowledgeable.

Benefits office for those who can't be bothered to even think:
http://www.oxford.gov.uk/contact/contact-benefits.cfm

-aqls-

 

[rob]

£10 quid, £1000 quid. It's fairly arbitrary and not the issue.

Software development takes time and effort, so either you can afford your own time to be spent on it or hire other people to do it. You can cook up a 5 minute script that catches in theory but in reality wont come close, or you can spend much much longer making something better.

Either way, someone somewhere will miss out as there is a single registrant for a domain. Even now, for every name caught there is about 20 pissed off catchers

I get names anyway - I buy them off dropcatchers.

£5 to £5000 is better profit than £1000 to £5000 etc

This is what is pissing me off with these threads, all altruistic arguements making out that people are in domains for the thrill of the hunt and matters of principle rather than admitting it is the prospect of turning a fiver into several grand.

365 is making an interesting point, previous threads have focused on 'cheating' by multi tags / dacs / witchcraft... using undocumented features or ways of doing things - is that cheating?

There was a trend recently to leave off DNS entries on domain applications, if people do that is it cheating? They are optional but the time must be taken on trial and error to see if it helps out. One catcher uses single letters for registrant name and address etc , is that cheating as well or just trying something they think makes them more effective?

Feel free to go to http://sourceforge.net/ and open up your code Likewise sell me forsale.co.uk for that tenner as you are not in it for the money

 

[Edwin]

In what other business does everyone (and I mean EVERYONE - otherwise an arbitrary line IS being drawn somewhere) get a fair and equal chance, regardless of ability, resources or money at their disposal? I can't think of any - why should domains be any different?

 

[jonno]

Software development takes time and effort, so either you can afford your own time to be spent on it or hire other people to do it. You can cook up a 5 minute script that catches in theory but in reality wont come close, or you can spend much much longer making something better.

totally agree!

why should nominet provide tagholders with software at this point, when others over the years have spent hours developing and optimising their own systems (or paying a lot of money for such custom systems).

if you aren't getting results - either optimise your software, or go for names that you have a better chance of catching.

as for Jay Daily - i appreciate his posts on this forum. people have to understand that there there are things he can and can't disclose publically. he doesn't HAVE to post here, but he chooses to - so show some appreciation for that.

 

[Admin]

as for Jay Daily - i appreciate his posts on this forum. people have to understand that there there are things he can and can't disclose publically. he doesn't HAVE to post here, but he chooses to - so show some appreciation for that.

well said Jonno, we appreciate Jay taking the time to come here and get involved with answering ours members questions

 

[aqls]

One catcher uses single letters for registrant name and address etc , is that cheating as well or just trying something they think makes them more effective?

It means that your return email will get there quicker.

(People with shorter names have an advantage over those who have longer ones! - unless you trick the system and register under a false name and change it later - well that's just an undocumented feature implicity approved by Nominet.)

I happen to think that's fair game but what relation does this undocumented 'feature' have on the fair distribution of domain names?

-aqls-

 

[Jay Daley]

What incensed me and what I find unbelievable is that a director of IT can come on a public forum and admit that undocumented features of their software are enabling a few "better" people to grab the lions share of the best commercial names.

I haven't said that as you well know. We do publish the full specs of our system but we can't tell you how to write programs. If a developer chooses to use SMTP command X instead of SMTP command Y because they think it shaves a few milliseconds off then what business do we have telling everyone else that?

There are some things mentioned in this thread that I only learnt about when I read them here - such as using a single character for address data (which is against our AUP BTW). This ingenuity has no bounds and is that which enables some people to be faster than others. Don't take away the impression that we know what everyone is up to because we don't. However, by investigating recent complaints we know nobody is using any undocumented features of our system (which we don't think we have anyway).

So the things we do learn are all about using command X instead of Y (not literally of course) and it is not our place to explain that. This is a commercial landscape where some people make significant investment in their systems. If we were to try and level that landscape by publishing everything we find out about how people access our systems then there some people might have a strong case that we are being anti-competitive.

 

[retired_member9]

I believe what Nominet should do at this stage, is to implement proper truly random algorithm for prenoms drop cycle.

I can't understand why they have to drop them in a favourable way for some people who, due to one or other reason, know the pattern.

This algo can be also made public, as any good RNG/PRNG system can't be weakened by having source examined.

It's only prenom drops what causes concerns, as with normal domains distribution is quite even.