.uk V2.0 Questions to Nominet & their Answers

[Stephen]

well its 3 hours since I submitted mine. They didn't post my comment last time I submitted one - but I've got a copy this time and think I'll give them a call to find out who the moderator is and chase them up.

Good luck, please ask about the other 5 comments that have posted by other people that are also not yet displayed.

 

[monaghan]

Friday afternoon and it's hot, probably down the pub

 

[Systreg]

probably down the pub

Or the cellar being whipped

 

[Nigel]

you can chase by emailing [email protected]

Here's what I said:

Hi

I phoned and spoke to Adam in Customer Services a few minutes ago. I asked him who moderated blog comments and he was unable to tell me but said it was someone in your marketing department. I made a blog comment over 3 hours ago on the blog by Lesley Cowley entitled 'a time for change'. Could you please advise me how long it normally takes to moderate and add a comment. Its just that I added a comment on another blog some months ago and it never appeared. This time however I kept a copy. This is what I wrote:

"I think it is a travesty that you will not email all existing registrants and invite them to contribute to the second consultation you have started. Most existing registrants are completely in the dark about your proposals to introduce domains at the second level. During the first consultation many of us were told - both verbally (I.e. at your roundtable meetings) and in writing (I exchanged emails with a nominet executive on this subject) that you had received legal advice which prevented you from sending emails to existing registrants. You advised that emailing your existing registrants could be construed as spam.
Yet you routinely email existing registrants with renewal reminders, and I understand that you intend emailing existing registrants to sell them the new shorter .uk domain if you proceed.

So my question to you Mrs Cowley is:
Why is it considered spam to consult existing registrants but not spam if you wish to sell them the new extension in the future?"

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

 

[Stephen]

cyber-crime?

you can chase by emailing [email protected]

Thanks for sent email.

Plus added another question:

"Nominet ..huge effort ....in combating cyber-crime"

What results has Nominet achieved in the last several years in the area of reducing cyber crime?

What safeguards have Nominet put in place to reduce the huge potential for an increase in "cyber-crime" by the very introduction of .uk? and why has Nominet not even mentioned that this is a real possibility to those that don't understand the domain industry?

 

[Stephen]

currency analogy!

New comment added to Nominet blog :

"It's fair to say that our system of third level registrations is out of step with the rest of the industry. We are the largest country code registry to still operate this way."

UK also operate the £ and many other EU countries use the Euro, under your logic, it is no brainer to switch currency over to the Euro, but don't point out any of the pitfalls.
As you have made a conscious decision to not point out any problems with the .uk introduction, under the method you have proposed.

 

[Stephen]

non - government dept

Another post on Nominet blog:

"As regards reserving names for some public bodies, we have been mindful of the government’s digital transformation project, and with public interest in mind, we proposed that those bodies that would otherwise be orphaned would have a safe haven should second level registrations go ahead. "

You have not even had confirmation those departments want those names and Nominet seems to making no effort to find out, if they want them.
If the effort was made, to confirm if they would be the preferred domain.
You could possibly reduce the number of domains that you are suggesting reserving and update the owners of those equivalent UK domains.

 

[Stephen]

short auction

Another Nominet blog comment post:

"but we do appreciate there are corner cases, such as treatment of short domains, that require closer scrutiny. "

As this was raised in the V1 .uk feedback as a special case, it is disappointing that Nominet did not address this and come up with a possible preferred solution and explain the reasons why.

As you did not address it fully, I would hope that Nominet deal with this soon to provide a possible solution before the V2 .uk consultation ends.
Rather than leaving such a inequitable situation to be left until the feedback is provided in November.

 

[Stephen]

UK registrants by email?

Another post to the Nominet blog : (although it may be some time before it ever gets seen there)

"We remain committed advocates of a multi-stakeholder approach to informing our policy development rather than a more top-down method of running the Internet."

Why not then contact all the UK registrants by email about .uk, as by your own admission the possible introduction of .uk would be the biggest change to the UK namespace since it begin. Especially as the last Nominet committee to consider introducing .uk said "no" and a sizable portion of the feedback from V1 .uk was "no" to .uk.

 

[Stephen]

5 years?

Another Nominet blog post:

"Our timeframe for this is not one or two years. Underlying this proposal is a consideration of how we act now in order that .uk will remain relevant over a 10 or 15 year period. "

Then why not show us the proposed way "a great place" website to be will show how .uk would fit into the offering rather than one of the other UK tld's such as .org.uk and .co.uk?, which you pledge to support and what does that really mean?

Show the vision of what the UK namespace will look like in 5 years time with .uk.

What will really happen to .co.uk and what will happen in a few years time with different owners of .co.uk and .uk and the potential for cyber crime it creates?

Once you launch .uk there is no going back with an apology we were wrong!

 

[Stephen]

cost of change to .uk?

Another Nominet blog post:

"introduce this change in a way that is sensitive to registrants in terms of both cost and time"

at the London roundtable meeting 2 weeks ago, Nominet stated it was likely it would take up and use Nominet.uk.

Nominet also stated they had not investigated the costs of moving over, it may because Nominet has millions of £'s in the bank.

Could you please now provide an estimate of the time and cost for Nominet as an organization to move from Nominet.org.uk to Nominet.uk as a guide to others?

Please provide the benefits Nominet itself would derive from the new domain?

Lastly what does that say to non-profit organizations on whether to register an .org.uk, when Nominet itself would not be using the extension?

 

[Stephen]

Protection

Another post to the Nominet blog:

From a greatplacetobe.co.uk - No.6 of How to choose a domain name

"If you can, register several similar domain names. For example, if you have ‘yourname.me.uk’ you could register ‘yourname.co.uk’ and ‘yourname.org.uk’ so no-one else can come in later and capitalise on your success."

This surely will lead to if you have the .uk register the .co.uk or vice versa and to all existing .co.uk registrants should surely be given the same advise register both the .uk and .co.uk version, so I don't see how this will create the millions of new business registrants you say you are trying to get with .uk

If your statement "a huge opportunity for the millions of businesses who are not currently online and want to secure their own domain name for the first time. They will soon be facing a vast array of domain name options and we believe that our revised proposals would appeal to these potential registrants. "

There is sufficient space in .co.uk for millions more registrations and if the .uk was paired with the .co.uk you would have the best of both, with none of the negative side effects your current plan has.

 

[markb]

Another Nominet blog post:

"introduce this change in a way that is sensitive to registrants in terms of both cost and time"

at the London roundtable meeting 2 weeks ago, Nominet stated it was likely it would take up and use Nominet.uk.

Nominet also stated they had not investigated the costs of moving over, it may because Nominet has millions of £'s in the bank.

Could you please now provide an estimate of the time and cost for Nominet as an organization to move from Nominet.org.uk to Nominet.uk as a guide to others?

Please provide the benefits Nominet itself would derive from the new domain?

Lastly what does that say to non-profit organizations on whether to register an .org.uk, when Nominet itself would not be using the extension?

Thats a great point, to which you probably won't receive an answer to from nominet.

 

[Marcoose]

Haha, only the first two posts on the thread.... what a surprise!!

Trasparency my arse!!

Stephen keep up the good work mate!

 

[Stephen]

Growth?

Another Nominet blog post:

"We cannot ignore increasingly challenging market conditions, reduced renewal rates and a significant slowdown in growth."

You have sought new revenue from .wales but then gave surplus away to Wales charity so nothing to invest from that.

It looks like growth for growth's sake at Nominet.

Many business/government departments in the last 6 years have had financial difficulties and most get on with the job of looking for efficiencies and cost savings.

Nominet has a monopoly on .uk domains and your solution is not to cut back but to use your power to extract more money from the same customers, probably doubling your turnover in the process and vastly improving your bonus pool and salaries, pensions etc. of those at Nominet.

 

[Stephen]

public scrutiny ?

Another post to the Nominet blog:

"As promised, we have now put our revised proposals up for public scrutiny once again. "

Thank you.

But as your revised.uk proposal are totally different from your original proposal.
All the major benefits and reasons for .uk are not present in V2 that were present in V1, I don't think the board would have survived and possibly the government would have stepped in and taken over Nominet.

I have asked Nominet over 30 questions about .uk and I get advised look on Nominet Q & A and some questions are outside the scope of .uk as they are to do with after .uk gets introduced. If we don't know how you are going to manage the process, how is this putting your plan up for public scrutiny.
Nominet has the information and it will not share it.

Nominet have stated also they are going to be transparent with .uk, yet the round table in London to discuss the most important change in the UK naming system since it began had no none domain related businesses present apart from 1 representative of the small business association and they left early.
Nominet are making no effort to bring this to the wider attention of UK stakeholders especially business and existing registrants which you state you are trying to help.

On this blog post there are at least 10 comment posts that I'm aware have been made in the last 18 hours that are still not showing on this blog, you could say its the weekend now but the internet goes on 247 and Nominet cannot seem to cope with that.

 

[Stephen]

Germany and New Zealand

Another post to the Nominet blog:

"the German registry – running .de – does not believe that gTLDs will pose a threat to them. However, I would argue that they will face less competition than English language domains"

I agree with the Germans the new domain names extensions will not create a threat to the UK namespace.

The UK namespace has faced new tld's such as .eu, .mobi, .travel .xxx in the last few years and has still maintained a very high percentage of usage of .co.uk in the UK internet space.

There may be a reduction in domain investors registering new .co.uk as they have lost faith in Nominet's ability to protect existing registrants. Dormant .co.uk domains are the majority of the 10,000,000 Uk domains currently registered.

Regarding English speaking maybe a comment about New Zealand .nz and their current consultation would be nice.

When it was thought New Zealand were moving from .co.nz to .nz Nominet seized on it saying they should be followed, now they are not introducing it in the same way and their feedback which is online and updated during the consultation for full transparency is questioning whether .nz is needed at all as its introduction would cause more problems that it would solve.

For full public scrutiny maybe Nominet should give a fuller picture of .uk.

 

[Stephen]

inside track?

Another Nominet blog post:

"We remain committed advocates of a multi-stakeholder approach to informing our policy development rather than a more top-down method of running the Internet."

Can you please advise if Nominet had any meetings and/or communications with organizations outside Nominet to shape the current .uk proposal after the previous consultation closed, if so who were they?

 

[Stephen]

Not compatible!

Another Nominet blog post:

"..proposes the biggest change to the .uk namespace since it began"

and

"Our consultation is not a vehicle for us to put forward a business case"

I do not see your 2 statements as being compatible.

The business case needs to be put forward for .uk as it is the biggest change to the UK namespace possible, this was made very clear in the feedback rom your last attempt to introduce .uk and reconfirmed at the recent round table meetings on your current .uk proposal.

Nominet provided a business case for .wales but not one for .uk?

 

[Stephen]

Please post on Nominet Blog

Haha, only the first two posts on the thread.... what a surprise!!

Trasparency my arse!!

Stephen keep up the good work mate!

Thanks.

I just hope others can find the time to post on the Nominet Blog.

Hope to use blog with the media but it will not carry so much weight if it is one person doing the comments.