No. The incentive of the big players to 'tweak' their systems to their advantage would be overwhelming. We've already seen with the £40 fiasco this week and 10yr price hikes just how reliable / moral these lot are! Let alone just how the US based .uk registrars would treat this. In their terms it would be a 'turkey shoot!'.
As I've stated in the past the current registrant contract is between the registrant and Nominet, and should stay that way. Registrars are simply middlemen with discounts.
Allowing contractual rights to an expired .uk domain to registrars would need a wholesale change to the current contract - including informing all current 10M registrants - and would lead to a slippery slope of the big players monopolising and effectively controlling .uk. Not that they already don't with the voting rules!
No, no, and thrice no. I'd rather Nominet be a 'less commercially savvy' entity but ploughing their own long furrow than go alon with their own US style 'special relationship'. There's nothing beneficial IMO with the .com system.
At the end of the day Nominets primary responsibility is to the registrants and not the registrars. Nominet are a non-for profit entity. Registrars most certainly are not....
S
