.UK Announced

[Edwin]

I would rather see the cash stockpiled than see it given away to charity.

Charities are a gravy train, most have salaried staff and in real terms what is donated 20%-40% in donated value ends up where its needed.

It's not a conventional charity. Nominet gives all the surplus to the Nominet Trust, which is spent on "stuff" that vaguely relates to computing/internet. Very little of what it does is "needed" in the conventional sense (it's not feeding starving people, rescuing animals, saving lives etc.) but it all looks grrrreat for PR purposes.

 

[Murray]

Just out of curiosity Edwin, if direct.uk were to go ahead, what kind of number of domains would you see yourself registering?.

+ That question to everyone else.

 

[Marcoose]

Just out of curiosity Edwin, if direct.uk were to go ahead, what kind of number of domains would you see yourself registering?.

+ That question to everyone else.

I personally haven't even thought about it and won't be until they feed back.

 

[Murray]

I personally haven't even thought about it and won't be until they feed back.

I guess it would also depend on what the reg fee would be finalised at, if it's going to be around that £20 then holding a big portofolio of domains is going to be a tough ask.

 

[stevebrowne]

personally speaking, if it does go ahead, I would cherry pick a few that I wanted to keep (personal, business etc.) liquidate the rest and concentrate on .com going forward and regret the day I ever decided to look at .co.uk as a long term option.

oh, and advise anyone asking me about domains to ignore the .uk names and go for .com.

 

[aZooZa]

I think good .co.uk as portfolio holds are fine, regardless of the .uk outcome. Just keep them prime. Trying to amass .com domains as an alternative isn't a viable option on a keyword-by-keyword basis unless your pockets reach to the depths of the Marianas Trench.

 

[murph]

personally speaking, if it does go ahead, I would cherry pick a few that I wanted to keep (personal, business etc.) liquidate the rest and concentrate on .com going forward and regret the day I ever decided to look at .co.uk as a long term option.

oh, and advise anyone asking me about domains to ignore the .uk names and go for .com.

Have to say, this would be my approach. I've already lost all faith in .uk. I only consider .com's for new projects now.

 

[markb]

If direct.uk goes ahead, I will definately only be using .com's for future development. .uk's arent reliable and too many defensive registrations would be needed, plus you never know when nominet would decide to try and screw you over again. Its a shame, because the uk namespace was absolutely great before all these proposals.

 

[websaway]

If direct.uk goes ahead, I will definately only be using .com's for future development. .uk's arent reliable and too many defensive registrations would be needed, plus you never know when nominet would decide to try and screw you over again. Its a shame, because the uk namespace was absolutely great before all these proposals.

It is beyond belief what nominet have achieved over the last 3 months, you couldn't make it up, they are like incompetent drunks driving a jetliner.

 

[Edwin]

Depends in what form. We have no intention whatsoever to get into bidding wars for particular domains, but if they're £20/year and we can get them then probably about 1,000 to match our top 10-15% of generics.

We would of course mark up the sale price of the .co.uk/.uk "package" significantly and insist all such domains sell as pairs or not at all.

 

[foz]

personally speaking, if it does go ahead, i would cherry pick a few that i wanted to keep (personal, business etc.) liquidate the rest and concentrate on .com going forward and regret the day i ever decided to look at .co.uk as a long term option.

Oh, and advise anyone asking me about domains to ignore the .uk names and go for .com.

+1

 

[Nigel]

If direct.uk goes ahead, I will definately only be using .com's for future development. .uk's arent reliable and too many defensive registrations would be needed, plus you never know when nominet would decide to try and screw you over again. Its a shame, because the uk namespace was absolutely great before all these proposals.

I agree .com is the beneficiary of all this confusion. That's why I'm against direct.uk. I don't have a plan B that I prefer. They just need to shelve it, say its finished and won't be looked at again, and then start the marketing campaign to restore and repair the .co.uk namespace.

 

[aZooZa]

Depends in what form. We have no intention whatsoever to get into bidding wars for particular domains, but if they're £20/year and we can get them then probably about 1,000 to match our top 10-15% of generics.

We would of course mark up the sale price of the .co.uk/.uk "package" significantly and insist all such domains sell as pairs or not at all.

As usual, the pragmatic view. Makes complete sense to me.

 

[websaway]

Depends in what form. We have no intention whatsoever to get into bidding wars for particular domains, but if they're £20/year and we can get them then probably about 1,000 to match our top 10-15% of generics.

We would of course mark up the sale price of the .co.uk/.uk "package" significantly and insist all such domains sell as pairs or not at all.

How much work would be involved in acquiring those 1000 .uk's ?

 

[Nigel]

Host Europe Group - uncomfortable with the current path that...

I wrote to Thomas Vollrath CEO of Host Europe Ltd recently in connection with direct.uk and have just received a response from Tim Beresford, director of Heart Internet Ltd. I am quite encouraged as they say "in our response to Nominet, we too have made a clear statement that we remain uncomfortable with the current path that the consultation offers for existing third level .uk registrants to be afforded their rights for a second level “direct”uk domain".

Host Europe Group are, I believe, the largest group in terms of voting rights - see this link http://www.nominet.org.uk/sites/default/files/57824_2012_voting_full.pdf so their view is very, very important. Webfusion are shown as 2,105,943 votes - the only other group that competes is 1&1 at 1,922,221. These two registrars account for over 4m of the 10m votes. *I have been advised that the voting rights are capped see Graeme's post below mine. I still stand by the fact that they are major players in the domain market and still have a sizeable vote.

I will be writing back with a call that the direct.uk plan be scrapped in its entirety. I will be providing supporting facts. I would ask any Host Europe client (which includes 123-reg, Heart Internet, Host Europe and WebFustion) to do likewise. They are clearly still ready to listen to their customer's responses and Mr Vollrath sits on the Nominet board. Here is the full text of Mr Beresford's letter:


"Thank you for your email about the .uk Registrar Conference. My colleague Oliver Hope from our Domains Business Unit attended and is the person you refer to as speaking on behalf of the Host Europe Group at this event. Oliver deals with our Domain Governance as a business and is widely engaged in both the local ccTLD market and global country code and generic markets, where we actively participate in policy development.

In terms of the research Oliver references at this conference, I can confirm that we carried out a survey on our 123-reg brand. The brand is our largest UK domain retail brand. The survey was posed as a question on the 123-reg site for a limited amount of time for us to garnish data as a representational view of our visitors.

We very much value your business and can assure you we are listening to all our customer’s views as we continue to consider our position on the “direct”.uk proposal.

Specifically, in our response to Nominet, we too have made a clear statement that we remain uncomfortable with the current path that the consultation offers for existing third level .uk registrants to be afforded their rights for a second level “direct”uk domain.

Best wishes


Tim Beresford
Director – Heart Internet Ltd
Host Europe Group"

 

[GreyWing]

Voting rights are capped at 3% mate, so groups (not just brands) only have 3% of votes. So if Sedo have 1m domains and OneandOne have 1m domains it is still only 3% of votes as they are in the same group.

Hence why the top 20 groups get the Nominet treatment and Christmas parties as they account for maybe 52% of the votes. I need to double check just what the top 20 have in voting rights, but they get the Nominet treatment anyway.

 

[websaway]

I notice the ipo.gov response to nominets proposals said:





"We assume that Nominet will be planning to ensure that the introduction of direct.uk domains does not have a detrimental effect on the reputation of existing domains"




How are they going to achieve that I wonder.

 

[Edwin]

I notice the ipo.gov response to nominets proposals said:





"We assume that Nominet will be planning to ensure that the introduction of direct.uk domains does not have a detrimental effect on the reputation of existing domains"




How are they going to achieve that I wonder.

I think what they mean is that is what they expect Nominet to do IF direct.uk goes ahead. Does not mean Nominet will take any notice!

 

[Nigel]

I notice the ipo.gov response to nominets proposals said:


"We assume that Nominet will be planning to ensure that the introduction of direct.uk domains does not have a detrimental effect on the reputation of existing domains"


How are they going to achieve that I wonder.

Good spot - we all know it's already had a detrimental effect on the reputation of existing domains. That's why our company's sales of .co.uk domains are massively down for the last quarter. And I assume Nominet's own stats will start showing a decline in registration numbers.

 

[websaway]

who is mrs A Barrow, is she a member ?

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/list_of_domains_names_affected_b