Second level .uk poll.

[Edwin]

I'm curious Edwin, how does the proposed £20 annual fee affect your business model? I assume you either need to dramatically improve your sales rate, or dramatically increase your end prices (which may of course decrease your sales rate, depending upon domains' price elasticity).

I only ask as you have been very forthright regarding your model before, by all means tell me to mind my own business.

I don't see it as being an issue. I expect the increase in sales will offset the extra fees. Though as I mentioned above we will probably pare down our portfolio a little and get rid of the "outliers".

 

[anthony]

This is going to be an end user business orientated move, which is not good for individuals who wont be allowed near the front of the queue, but this would suit the sycophantic recognition seekers out there.

On the flip side, it's not intended to be easy for small numbers of domainers et al to build up huge domain portfolios, which is something positive to be honest.

 

[arkvard]

This is going to be an end user business orientated move, which is not good for individuals who wont be allowed near the front of the queue, but this would suit the sycophantic recognition seekers out there.

On the flip side, it's not intended to be easy for small numbers of domainers et al to build up huge domain portfolios, which is something positive to be honest.

If it turns out that they offer the .uk to all holders of the existing .co.uk 1st isn't that going to be a license to print money for all the domain traders sitting on the .co.uk domains and all they have to pay is just £20 for a domain that could in potential be worth many £xxxxxxx

 

[anthony]

If it turns out that they offer the .uk to all holders of the existing .co.uk 1st isn't that going to be a license to print money for all the domain traders sitting on the .co.uk domains and all they have to pay is just £20 for a domain that could in potential be worth many £xxxxxxx

Of course it is. I don't have a beef with a .uk rollout per se, but I do strongly question the dubious motives behind Nominet's decision on this, and the potential unlevel playing field when applying for one. I actually have no problem if it stops domain hoarding, and this ridiculous cry for blanket grandfather rights. Why the fuck should a hoarder with 1,000s, sometimes tens of 1,000s of domains tied up, get direct access to the .uk versions? The reason so many good domains are tied up right now is down to flaws in the Nominet business model, they're not going to repeat the same mistake again, but only to a point.

What bugs me is that the ordinary man in the street is going to get sh1t on again, with little or no change of getting a good domain name.

The dropcatching funeral is on the horizon guys, that's a fact I'm afraid.

 

[Trigger Happy]

If it turns out that they offer the .uk to all holders of the existing .co.uk 1st isn't that going to be a license to print money for all the domain traders sitting on the .co.uk domains and all they have to pay is just £20 for a domain that could in potential be worth many £xxxxxxx

Which is why they won't do this.

People are arguing that if you have co.uk you should get first dibs on .uk.

However, there would then be nothing stopping you selling the two seperately, which ultimately undermines the reason for offering it.

Only domains with active websites are likely to get a look in in my opinion.

 

[Alien]

Which is why they won't do this.

People are arguing that if you have co.uk you should get first dibs on .uk.

Which in my opinion is quite ridiculous if it turns out to be the case (e.g. Grandfather rights).

TM issues - shouldn't give those who have them, automatic rights to a domain name. It's also been raised a few times too - who decides if more than one TM holder applies for the same name?

It is a subjective issue what is the 'best' .uk domain extension for many people. I'm not just referring to 'domain investors' here (who obviously favour .co.uk for varying reasons), but also to the 'end user', the average internet user and those who have domains registered to them that they actually use in one way or another.

There are many, many highly developed and well used .org.uk names for instance (think charities, etc) who will not own the .co.uk variant in their name - why shouldn't they have first 'dibs' on a .uk name too?

There are also many businesses using .org.uk too for commercial reasons as for one reason or another they couldn't acquire the .co.uk.

Admittedly this .uk possibility is being aimed at businesses and Nominet themselves say the .co.uk is aimed at 'commercial' use - but this should not demote other genuine domain name extension holders down the future .uk queue.

 

[arkvard]

Of course it is. I don't have a beef with a .uk rollout per se, but I do strongly question the dubious motives behind Nominet's decision on this, and the potential unlevel playing field when applying for one. I actually have no problem if it stops domain hoarding, and this ridiculous cry for blanket grandfather rights. Why the fuck should a hoarder with 1,000s, sometimes tens of 1,000s of domains tied up, get direct access to the .uk versions? The reason so many good domains are tied up right now is down to flaws in the Nominet business model, they're not going to repeat the same mistake again, but only to a point.

What bugs me is that the ordinary man in the street is going to get sh1t on again, with little or no change of getting a good domain name.

The dropcatching funeral is on the horizon guys, that's a fact I'm afraid.

Yeah I agree totally and I can't just see them handing over all those juicy domains that the domain horders are going to love to get their hands on, that could be worth a fortune for just £20 and Nominet surely know that, so they will make whoever wants them pay a proper price.

Which is why they won't do this.

People are arguing that if you have co.uk you should get first dibs on .uk.

However, there would then be nothing stopping you selling the two seperately, which ultimately undermines the reason for offering it.

Only domains with active websites are likely to get a look in in my opinion.

Yep I agree with that.

 

[Maccke]

Just from my own experience with domains in other countries.

For instance, my short .ccTLD domains had about 50-75 type-ins a day while my only 2 letter .CO.UK only have a few. 2 letters are new and a bit unusual in UK anyway so might not be a good comparison.

Anyway, my decent keyword domains in other countries often have a considerable amount of type-ins, while I seldom see many type-ins for .CO.UK domains. My personal belief is that .CO.UK's 3 extra characters (.co) puts people off from testing/doing type-ins and that it would be more if Great Britian used .UK instead of .CO.UK. A transformation would probably take 2-8 years before people gets really used to .UK instead of .CO.UK.

Any evidence of this? With .co.uk being so entrench the logic would be the other way around?

 

[Maccke]

Current .CO.UK owners should have equal rights as trademark holders in my opinion.

 

[Rob_F]

If it turns out that they offer the .uk to all holders of the existing .co.uk 1st isn't that going to be a license to print money for all the domain traders sitting on the .co.uk domains and all they have to pay is just £20 for a domain that could in potential be worth many £xxxxxxx

Those domain traders sitting on premium .co.uk domains in many cases have already paid thousands for the privilege, tens of thousands in many cases. They wouldn't be getting them for £20, they would be getting first dibs for the cost of their .co.uk + £20. In a lot of instances, that investment would far exceed the cost of a TM.

Do you own any decent .co.uk domains by any chance? Reading between the lines of your arguments, I'd guess not. I think you are probably seeing this from a purely selfish perspective, as a potential opportunity for you, regardless of how it impacts others who currently have a stake in the namespace e.g. business owners, domain investors, etc.

- Rob

 

[arkvard]

Those domain traders sitting on premium .co.uk in many cases have already paid thousands for the privilege, tens of thousands on many cases. They wouldn't be getting them for £20, they would be getting first dibs for the cost of their .co.uk + £20. In a lot of instances, that investment would far exceed the cost of a TM.

Do you own any decent .co.uk domains by any chance? Reading between the lines of your arguments, I'd guess not. I think you are probably seeing this from a purely selfish perspective, as a potential opportunity for you, regardless of how it impacts others who currently have a stake in the name space e.g. business owners, domain investors, etc.

- Rob

I own just 3 of what I would call premium .co.uk that are very aged and which have developed sites on them with no TM issues so maybe I have a good chance of picking up the new .uk when it comes or maybe not, who knows yet. All the other .uks I have are just new and not good, but I do have have some decent .coms. To be honest I'm not looking at it from a selfish point of view as I have no interest in bidding for any of the new .uk but for sure would pick some up for reg fee if possible but I doubt there will be many decent ones left if any, once it is open to everyone anyway.

 

[Bailey]

I'm with edwins Earlier comments on this poll

This Vote really (on the whole) just reflects the Acorn membership ratio of established participants in the UK name space in relation to those who are new. But that was pretty obvious that was all you was going to get.

 

[foz]

I'm with edwins Earlier comments on this poll

This Vote really (on the whole) just reflects the Acorn membership ratio of established participants in the UK name space in relation to those who are new. But that was pretty obvious that was all you was going to get.

But at least it demonstrates the direction of that voice.

Edwin is pro change and to grandfather, reading between the lines.

 

[Edwin]

Edwin is pro change and to grandfather, reading between the lines.

No need to read "between" them.

I am pro grandfathering, IF the change goes ahead. I have explained why at length, and there's no logical flaw in my reasoning since it's based on Nominet's own actions to date.

I also believe the change is inevitable at some point, now that the genie is out of the bottle at Nominet's end. I'm definitely not "pro" change, in that I would much rather not have to deal with this whole mess and being "pro" implies I'm somehow happy about it, which I'm not...

But because I can't see any viable scenario in which ".uk" doesn't happen (only the "when" and the "how" change, not the fact itself) I have moved beyond the "will it won't it" stage and I'm focused squarely on the process.

 

[Edwin]

Those domain traders sitting on premium .co.uk in many cases have already paid thousands for the privilege, tens of thousands on many cases. They wouldn't be getting them for £20, they would be getting first dibs for the cost of their .co.uk + £20. In a lot of instances, that investment would far exceed the cost of a TM.

Spot on. And multiply that by thousands, tens of thousands or more for the larger portfolio holders because of the number of names they hold. They will have spent significantly more on building those portfolios than many "real world" businesses ever invest in their own businesses.

This is one aspect of domaining that a lot of nay-sayers simply refuse to grasp. They see it extremely simplistically, as "Domain costs £6, sells for £x,xxx therefore profiteering" (cue steam coming out of ears). The reality is "Domain costs £6-x,xxx, 1 in 100-ish sells for £x,xxx or better and the rest need to be constantly renewed (otherwise the business runs out of stock, the death of ANY business) therefore a bit better than break even" (no call for any steam).

 

[righthand]

There are many, many highly developed and well used .org.uk names for instance (think charities, etc) who will not own the .co.uk variant in their name - why shouldn't they have first 'dibs' on a .uk name too?

Because the .org.uk owner has already been doing fine with a second-most-popular domain. The blow to the brand of the .co.uk owner is potentially much more devastating.

But by all means if the .co.uk is owned by a speculator and the .org.uk by a charity, give it to the charity.

 

[websaway]

Because the .org.uk owner has already been doing fine with a second-most-popular domain. The blow to the brand of the .co.uk owner is potentially much more devastating.

But by all means if the .co.uk is owned by a speculator and the .org.uk by a charity, give it to the charity.

That's how farcical the whole issue is. It reminds me of a drink fueled bar room brawl.

 

[websaway]

Because the .org.uk owner has already been doing fine with a second-most-popular domain. The blow to the brand of the .co.uk owner is potentially much more devastating.

But by all means if the .co.uk is owned by a speculator and the .org.uk by a charity, give it to the charity.

Interesting thought for you.... what do you class as a charity, the guy who operates as a charitable organisation but takes a big fat salary ?
Who do you class as a speculator, the guy who buys a domain that nobody else wants and gambles that one day it will be commercially viable to develop or sell it on.

 

[martin-s]

1 in 100-ish sells for £x,xxx or better

The pace of stock movement is critical to any business.

• Stock on the shelf is an opportunity cost.
• Each domain probably costs £15 per year to hold once you've factored in a bit of admin and maintenance time.
• Unsold domains do have an expiry date as technology moves on and names become irrelevant.
• External threats (like .uk) can affect value and stock therefore carries a risk value also.

This year I've turned 7.3% of my domain stock by using a pro-active approach.

Admittedly only at an average of ~£300, but that's down to the quality of stock I hold being a relatively latecomer to the party.

 

[jasman]

I think it an affront not just to domain portfolio holders but to all .co.uk owners, the very people whose reg fees have financed Nominet from the start. And now Nominet is proposing to pull the rug from under its millions of customers by creating a confusingly similar .uk doppelganger for every .co.uk. Nominet effectively would be cybersquatting on confusingly similar domains to the millions of existing .co.uks and actively trying to sell them.

Even if we were given the option of buying the equivalent .uk domains to the .co.uk domains that we already own, if the new .uk domains carried say a £20 per year reg fee as is being suggested, we would be faced with a hobson's choice of:

a: having our reg fees effectively increase by 800% for those domains we chose to protect by getting the .uk equivalent.
b: risking someone else register a confusingly similar domain.

Every valuable .co.uk would reduce in value because it would have a very close substitute, doubling the supply of exact match domains for its wording.

The £billions spent on UK companies advertising their web addresses would be undermined as anyone could come along and register a confusingly similar domain and profit from the confusion i.e. Nominet would be inducing cybersquatting on a truly grand scale.

For the average man on the street trying to remember web addresses it would cause considerable confusion having to distinguish between two very similar styles and remember which one a given website has. The potential for fraud with near identical domains to millions of existing websites' domains being released would also be enormous.

The current system which segregates government websites into .gov.uk, academic ones into .ac.uk and business and charities broadly though not exactly into .co.uk and .org.uk would also be undermined. Would for example all existing .gov.uk domains block a .uk registration? If so the government would be prevented from creating new .gov.uk domains in the future if a .uk existed or face a potentially dangerous conflict of confusion.

This is a bad idea for existing .co.uk domain owners and a bad idea for the UK population owing to the potential for confusion and fraud. It is no doubt being pushed by domain name registrars, who thanks to the change in Nominet's voting system a few years back, now hold a disproportionately strong voting position within the registry. No doubt many in the legal profession also see pound-signs in the proposal as they would welcome a flood of "passing off" attacks on the clients they profess to represent as a source of new revenue.

If this idea appears to progress beyond the idea stage I think a class action lawsuit would be in order to stop Nominet profiting from making millions of confusingly similar domains available in the market.