.uk V2.0 Questions to Nominet & their Answers

[Stephen]

Nominet study?

Came across reference to a Nominet study on the internet:

http://www.turk.internet.com/portal/yazigoster.php?yaziid=42991

...in contrast with public opinion, where a national study of 5,000 people for Nominet found that 87% of Brits believe the internet has had a positive effect on their lives......

Has anybody seen the full report?

I would question where are the reports and studies commissioned by Nominet about the massively important subject of the possible introduction of .uk and its pros and cons?

 

[websaway]

I can't believe that with such an important proposal to the change of the uk namespace, that there isn't many more articles out there on the subject. It just goes to show that nominet don't really want people to know what may be happening until its too late.

It is conflicts of interest that needs to be guarded against.
The only fair way to have this decided is for every registrant to be informed of the proposed changes.

 

[markb]

It is conflicts of interest that needs to be guarded against.
The only fair way to have this decided is for every registrant to be informed of the proposed changes.

I think if you phoned up 100 random small businesses in the UK that use a .co.uk domain for their online business, I would guess that not even one of them knew about the proposal for the .uk domains.

As this proposal is going to effect mainly small businesses who trade online, I think it is disgraceful that nominet haven't gone to greater lengths to attempt to inform that correct people.

 

[Stephen]

Alternative view

I think if you phoned up 100 random small businesses in the UK that use a .co.uk domain for their online business, I would guess that not even one of them knew about the proposal for the .uk domains.

As this proposal is going to effect mainly small businesses who trade online, I think it is disgraceful that nominet haven't gone to greater lengths to attempt to inform that correct people.

Although I agree with you 100% to give a different view point,
I introduce a recent post by Edwin (3-7-2013 #27) on the subject of why not contact all UK registrants to inform them of the .uk proposal.

It's pretty much infeasible to get feedback from several million people about a subject that 99.5%+ barely understand or don't understand at all. Talk about information gaps! There's so much wild speculation and disinformation flying around even on Acorn that it's easy to see that opening the floodgates to a tidal wave of "opinions" from the wider registrant base - most of which will by definition be ill-informed or out-and-out-wrong - is a recipe for stagnation and chaos.

We forget very easily just how strange and esoteric the whole "domain thing" is to the average individual or small business owner - how can they possibly be expected to absorb all the nuances of a subject so complex that we're up to 5,540 posts about it already in a venue that boasts the highest concentration of subject matter experts on the planet??

Remember too that it is perfectly possible to end up with a situation in which a large majority of people are completely wrong about something through lack of adequate understanding. Think flat Earth, Earth-centric universe, etc. - concepts that pretty much EVERYONE believed in yet were absolutely 100% wrong.

In other words, it's important to qualify the "level of knowledge" of respondents, not just the raw numbers in support of a particular POV. Note that I made this point during the V1 consultation too, because there was a lot of commentary floating around that was out-and-out wrong, but where the authors didn't have the depth of knowledge to know that they were wrong. My argument was/is that if from your comments you clearly have no idea at all what you're talking about, your opinion is worth exactly NOTHING AT ALL.

(That was particularly evident with respect to the security proposals, where people who had no security knowledge, background or understanding were wading into the discussion with totally unworkable ideas BECAUSE they had no security knowledge, background or understanding.)

At the moment we don't know what Nominet are going to do about contacting more registrants but I doubt they will.
We may get some answers at the round table tomorrow?
They have not even contacted all UK registrars as far as I know only those on the nom-announce list.
Plus I do not believe Nominet have even contact all respondents to Version 1 to inform them Version 2.0 proposal as been released!

 

[Nigel]

I think if you phoned up 100 random small businesses in the UK that use a .co.uk domain for their online business, I would guess that not even one of them knew about the proposal for the .uk domains.

As this proposal is going to effect mainly small businesses who trade online, I think it is disgraceful that nominet haven't gone to greater lengths to attempt to inform that correct people.

Nominet have shown by their actions that they have no interest in contacting existing registrants before the decision is taken. They might get the answer they don't want. They used the data protection act as an excuse with the first consultation - they said emailing them could be seen as spam.

Yet they feel able to contact existing registrants to tell them that they can apply for the new domain. I can't see the difference. In any event they have said that they are launching an 'awareness campaign' after the decision has been made. Nominet have said:

'If a decision to go ahead is taken, Nominet would notify existing registrants by email, and would run an awareness campaign to ensure that existing registrants have every opportunity to exercise their right of first refusal.'

Now is the time to run an awareness campaign. That would be the action of a responsible registry.

 

[Stephen]

Go further.....

.....'If a decision to go ahead is taken, Nominet would notify existing registrants by email, and would run an awareness campaign to ensure that existing registrants have every opportunity to exercise their right of first refusal.'

Now is the time to run an awareness campaign. That would be the action of a responsible registry.

I would go further and encourage Nominet to contact all UK registrants and tell them of the proposal.

The "consultation guidelines of best practice" state that the proposal should be presented in such a way as the recipients will understand it.

I would therefore hope Nominet would produce a simpler guide of the implications both good and bad
as the majority of people who would receive it, would not understand about gTLD's, tld's, UK namespace, second level, phishing, security issues,
continuous registration period etc. it would need to be in plain English.

I would hope they would also include details of alternative proposals and even reasons why they have dismissed them
but it would provide the person being asked do you want .uk with the right information on which to base their decision on how to complete the consultation.

Also it would helpful if Nominet provided a tool to check oldest registration.

But thanks to Acorn members the public has access to a .uk checker now:

Jon Byrne http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-domain-name-consultations/117269-uk-winner-checker-well-start.html
Jamie 101 http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-domain-name-consultations/117329-uk-domain-checker.html

 

[jonbyrne]

Will Nominet contact media that publish incorrect account of its new proposal for .uk and ask them to correct the article?

Such as at:

http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2013/july/icann-sets-security-standards-requirement-for-new-top-level-domain-registries-as-nominet-resurrects-uk-plans/

Where is incorrectly states:

Under the plans businesses that own existing domain names rooted at '.uk' would have a "right of first refusal" to secure a '.uk'-only domain name. Nominet said the new regime would offer improved security.

I contacted "out-law" regarding this last night a got a quick response thing morning. The journalist who wrote the article stated he understood my points regarding the .uk qualifications for first refusal but had this to say.

However, I do not think, on this occasion, that it is necessary to amend the story to reflect this level of detail.

 

[Stephen]

How will it work out for businesses?

I contacted "out-law" regarding this last night a got a quick response thing morning. The journalist who wrote the article stated he understood my points regarding the .uk qualifications for first refusal but had this to say.

However, I do not think, on this occasion, that it is necessary to amend the story to reflect this level of detail.

Thanks for following up and posting the reply.

I'm staggered on how this is being painted as good for business.

The proposal is good for 90% (best guess) of businesses that have the rights to the .uk but how many will take up the offer,
if they don't understand or get to hear about it.
I know Monkey has mentioned many times, that will not be the case,
however my opinion is the majority will not act to get the .uk for a variety of reasons the least being that they would not like to have the .uk!

There are alternative solutions for .uk which don't have the negative side effects of the current proposal,
that I believe would be accepted by the UK registrants, even if you emailed them all.

 

[websaway]

I think if you phoned up 100 random small businesses in the UK that use a .co.uk domain for their online business, I would guess that not even one of them knew about the proposal for the .uk domains.

As this proposal is going to effect mainly small businesses who trade online, I think it is disgraceful that nominet haven't gone to greater lengths to attempt to inform that correct people.

Whatever your views on the necessity of .uk there is no doubt in my mind that nominets approach has been to gradually pacify objectors, nothing wrong with that except that the board is made up of people who will profit substantially from the introduction of .uk in any form.
Therefore, every registrant should have a say in the process of introducing or preventing the introduction of the new extension.

 

[monaghan]

Whatever your views on the necessity of .uk there is no doubt in my mind that nominets approach has been to gradually pacify objectors, nothing wrong with that except that the board is made up of people who will profit substantially from the introduction of .uk in any form.
Therefore, every registrant should have a say in the process of introducing or preventing the introduction of the new extension.

The financial gain of those who make the decision is a major concern

 

[Nigel]

I would go further and encourage Nominet to contact all UK registrants and tell them of the proposal.

The "consultation guidelines of best practice" state that the proposal should be presented in such a way as the recipients will understand it.

I would therefore hope Nominet would produce a simpler guide of the implications both good and bad
as the majority of people who would receive it, would not understand about gTLD's, tld's, UK namespace, second level, phishing, security issues,
continuous registration period etc. it would need to be in plain English.

I would hope they would also include details of alternative proposals and even reasons why they have dismissed them
but it would provide the person being asked do you want .uk with the right information on which to base their decision on how to complete the consultation.

Also it would helpful if Nominet provided a tool to check oldest registration.

But thanks to Acorn members the public has access to a .uk checker now:

Jon Byrne http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-domain-name-consultations/117269-uk-winner-checker-well-start.html
Jamie 101 http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-domain-name-consultations/117329-uk-domain-checker.html

I agree that they should contact all existing registrants immediately. I'm convinced that they could contact them if they really wanted to. I do not believe that anyone would view such an important communication as spam. During the first consultation they said that this had been referred to their in house legal team and they'd advised against contacting existing registrants. I might dig out the communications I had with a Nominet executive on this. I'd like this to be referred to an independent firm of lawyers immediately to clear the way for all existing registrants to be put on notice about the consultation.

In any event I'm saying that the 'awareness campaign' should have already started.

 

[Stephen]

more questions

thanks for the postings, added some more questions and adjusted others:

Has the government departments asked for the .uk names to be reserved for them or is this just a proposal by nominet

What does Nominet believe the initial and long term take up of .uk to be?

What will the estimated effect of the .uk proposal be on the Nominet bonus pool for the next several years?

Why, in Nominet’s opinion will the .uk be more meaningful for those non-government departmental bodies to use than any other domain, .org.uk or .co.uk for example?

The government have confirmed that they have no locus to act in Nominet business, that Nominet is a private company limited by guarantee, regulated by its members. If the government refuses to accept responsibility for Nominet, then surely, it can have no claim on Nominet assets. A private company limited by guarantee is answerable to its members, it cannot give away company assets without the permission of its members. The government cannot accept gifts for favours, and there needs to be a proper and transparent mechanism for this transaction. What would be the legal basis for this proposed reserved domain name transaction?

Will Nominet be using Nominet.uk as their main domain instead of Nominet.org.uk, if so why
not use .org.uk? and if staying with.org.uk then no more domains are made available, if everybody did the same?

If Nominet did change to .uk, what is the budget set aside for rebranding costs?

Nominet recently commissioned a report which stated "a national study of 5,000 people for Nominet found that 87% of Brits believe the internet has had a positive effect on their lives" did they have questions asked about .uk, if so would they please make them public?

 

[markb]

thanks for the postings, added some more questions and adjusted others:

Has the government departments asked for the .uk names to be reserved for them or is this just a proposal by nominet

What does Nominet believe the initial and long term take up of .uk to be?

What will the estimated effect of the .uk proposal be on the Nominet bonus pool for the next several years?

Why, in Nominet’s opinion will the .uk be more meaningful for those non-government departmental bodies to use than any other domain, .org.uk or .co.uk for example?

The government have confirmed that they have no locus to act in Nominet business, that Nominet is a private company limited by guarantee, regulated by its members. If the government refuses to accept responsibility for Nominet, then surely, it can have no claim on Nominet assets. A private company limited by guarantee is answerable to its members, it cannot give away company assets without the permission of its members. The government cannot accept gifts for favours, and there needs to be a proper and transparent mechanism for this transaction. What would be the legal basis for this proposed reserved domain name transaction?

Will Nominet be using Nominet.uk as their main domain instead of Nominet.org.uk, if so why
not use .org.uk? and if staying with.org.uk then no more domains are made available, if everybody did the same?

If Nominet did change to .uk, what is the budget set aside for rebranding costs?

Nominet recently commissioned a report which stated "a national study of 5,000 people for Nominet found that 87% of Brits believe the internet has had a positive effect on their lives" did they have questions asked about .uk, if so would they please make them public?

These are great questions which nominet need to answer, thanks for adding them.

If the government haven't asked for certain domains to be reserved, why have Nominet taken upon itself to reserve these domains on the governments behalf, and why have they proposed to reserve generic domains which under the current proposal should be offered to oldest registered UK domain owner. I'm sure if Nominet didn't reserve these names, then the government departments/websites effected, would look to register their own new domain names which don't conflict with the interests of existing domain owners.

Mark

 

[dougs]

wow life has been busy

Cheers Stephen for sending this to me.

I am large domain buyer of co.uk, org.uk, me.uk and 2 letter domains. But more importantly I have turned many of those domains into business's and hence can see this as a domainer, but also as a business owner.

As a domain owner then I win some and loose some...that's the game I have played for many years. Many of us here have made money by being aware of information before the rest of the world caught on.

Continuous registration I like as it means dropped domains are not as powerful in the process....plus any cyber squatters loose too. (I have just realised a mate of mine who runs a huge quasi charity on a org.uk will get the uk, as Nokta bought the co.uk and tried to hold him to ransom.)

I still do think that surely a simple way to do this process is to allow the person who owns the co.uk to get the first option to get the uk....thus the world really does not change for anyone.

Doug

 

[addz123]

The main question and comment I made in the proposal was:

What is the intended purpose and use of Direct.uk? The lack of clarity by Nominet on who Direct.uk is for makes it impossible to give accurate feedback in the consultation.

For example, if Direct.uk is mainly intended for business then the release rights and costs should be weighted more in favour of .co.uk owners. If it's intended for non-commercial organisations then more weight should be given to .org.uk/me.uk third-level owners.

I mentioned that if Direct.uk is for everyone, then it relegates and makes third-level extensions in the UK namespace obsolete, as there would be no reason to have a .org.uk or .co.uk domain anymore. It also means governments should have no prior right to certain .uk domains.

I finally said that the lack of clarity over the use and purpose of .uk adds confusion to the UK namespace since a business owner doesn't know if he needs to defensively acquire the .uk equivalent of his brand or whether .uk would usurp .co.uk in the future.

 

[markb]

The main question and comment I made in the proposal was:

What is the intended purpose and use of Direct.uk? The lack of clarity by Nominet on who Direct.uk is for makes it impossible to give accurate feedback in the consultation.

For example, if Direct.uk is mainly intended for business then the release rights and costs should be weighted more in favour of .co.uk owners. If it's intended for non-commercial organisations then more weight should be given to .org.uk/me.uk third-level owners.

I mentioned that if Direct.uk is for everyone, then it relegates and makes third-level extensions in the UK namespace obsolete, as there would be no reason to have a .org.uk or .co.uk domain anymore. It also means governments should have no prior right to certain .uk domains.

I finally said that the lack of clarity over the use and purpose of .uk adds confusion to the UK namespace since a business owner doesn't know if he needs to defensively acquire the .uk equivalent of his brand or whether .uk would usurp .co.uk in the future.

Did you ask this at the round table meeting today or via the feedback form? I honestly believe that nominet don't have a clue what the intended use of the .uk domains are and are making it up as they go along in an attempt to get the go ahead for the release of the .uk, anyway they can.

The majority of people initially complaining against the proposals where domainers. Nominet then turned around with V2 and made it a lot more appealing to domainers.

Initially their main reason was added security, which would mean it was aimed at businesses. But when the original proposal was blocked, they decided to amend this so that security wasn't the main reason and that the .uk could be used by anyone.

I think it needs to have a defined purpose and use, otherwise it is going to cause confusion and conflicts of interest, which is going to lead to legal problems for many business and domain owners.

 

[Skinner]

Isn't their intended use to buy a beachfront property in Miami or Barbados with their bonus ?

 

[markb]

Isn't their intended use to buy a beachfront property in Miami or Barbados with their bonus ?

More than likely, and they are bending over backwards being nice to the government to try and get them on board, because they know if they don't direct.uk has no chance of going through.

 

[willbon]

A few more questions for you to add / ignore at your discretion Stephen...

I don't think they've been covered in this yet.... apologies if I've missed it... or I'm saying the same thing in a different way!


1 If Nominet are trying to 'open up' and offer more options to UK residents, could they simply remove the 'suggested uses' of the .org.uk and .me.uk extensions?

2 If the .uk goes ahead, what plans have Nominet got for ensuring there is no confusion between .uk and all the current extensions; .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk, .ltd.uk, .plc.uk. What media campaign / direct contact is planned and the budget for this?.. and what professional advice have they already taken, and from whom, regarding managing the change and the confusion?

3 As this move to shorten the extension will make the newly created '.uk' the 'premier' UK extension, will Nominet be reducing the prices of the other extensions it offers?

4 Have, or will, Nominet be seeking to add another extension to it's portfolio in the next 5 years?... e.g. '.gb'

5 If there is to be a need to have a physical address in the UK upon registration, how often and by what means will this be 'tested' to ensure that the domain is still associated with this address years after?

6 The release of .uk will have an extremely large take up...
a) What extra financial and physical assets are Nominet proposing to cope with the initial huge demand, then the later administration of the extension?
b) What is the budget for the advertising of the new extension?
c) What are the expected sales figures in the first year of the new extension?

7) Who is ultimately responsible for the the .uk domain extension? .. What is their personal risk / reward for this venture? .. and has anyone assessed their capability to act on behalf of potentially 60 million customers?

 

[Stephen]

thanks

thanks Willbon, will try to weave in your quality questions as soon as I can
thanks very much