Who the hell thought 5 years was a good idea...

[pugdomains]

I'm new to UK domains, but it is obvious to me that what is primarily surpressing the market right now is the shambolic way that .UK domains have been handled.

I know that domaining in the UK is a small circle, and that there are probably nominet committee members on here, etc, and I don't want to inadvertedly upset anybody. Its not a political post, I couldn't name a single nominet official.

But why 5 years?

Why does any business need 5 years warning to register a .UK domain?

When you register any domain you've only got 1 year until you need to renew that domain, unless you register for longer periods.

So why on earth give people 5 years warning to spend a few quid on a domain, its not like its a huge investment decision which needs to be budgeted and planned for.

UK domaining would be fun and more active if this .UK shambles wasn't a cloud hanging over the industry. Take hand regs for emerging markets for example.....

..... with .com's people speculatively hand reg hundreds of domains on VR, cloud applications, other growth industries or new techs etc etc.

Surely the appeal and/or viability of doing that with UK domains for all but the very best names is greatly diminished by the fact that people have to register twice the number of names, at (typically) twice the usual cost.

There are domainers in here saying that they aren't interested in buying/registering new names until 2019. Think of all the nominet transfer fees lost from domain traders going into temporary semi-retirement, and all the reg fees lost by those who don't want to have to register two domains when speculating.

5 years, half a decade, a huge chunk of somebodies adult life, its a ridiculous timeframe isn't it?

They could even have just automatically given every .co.uk owner the .uk for free, and told them that they need to renew in a year else it will drop. Job done.

Sorry for the rant, and sorry if it is ill-informed. I am looking forward to 2019, and I suspect I'll invest a lot of research into potential .UK regs in 2018, that will be great fun..... but blimey, they'll probably be domainers dying of natural causes between now and then.

 

[Skinner]

The whole issue is that in nominets mind, they see .uk and .co.uk as TOTALLY different things, no more related than a leg and an arm is.

So they don't see why you NEED both .co.uk and .uk, secretly they know full well that until the new king is crowned you need both. Denying this fact means they can milk you like the human cash cow you are while appearing innocent.

Almost without exception, no body wanted .uk, and those who did want it, more wanted the .co.uk and .uk to be paired or replaced.

 

[spiderspider]

When it went through the consultation periods, the vast majority of people who knew about the consultations were dead against the introduction of .uk

Nominet were determined that by hook or by crook .uk was being introduced.

Nominet then said that 5 years to buy your matching .uk would be introduced at the end of consultation v2.

If you need to know more about it, search the forum, or see some of the posts made by users 'Edwin' and 'invincible'.

 

[pugdomains]

When it went through the consultation periods, the vast majority of people who knew about the consultations were dead against the introduction of .uk

Nominet were determined that by hook or by crook .uk was being introduced.

Nominet then said that 5 years to buy your matching .uk would be introduced at the end of consultation v2.

If you need to know more about it, search the forum, or see some of the posts made by users 'Edwin' and 'invincible'.

Personally I haven't got much of an issue with the .UK extension in a broad sense, just so many much more logical ways to have dealt with the roll out.

If you just gave every .co.uk owner the .uk domain for free at the point of launch, automatically, then it would be their's to lose 12 months later and we all could have saved 4 years and got the inevitable fall out done with swiftly. The sh*t is going to hit the fan in 2019, it will bring opportunities for domainers but also going to be some nastiness.

I don't care much for the debate about whether .UK should even exist, the fact is that it does now, I just cannot think of a single reason why any business or individual needs notifications that they will have a domain to register in 2019.... its just bizarre.

It doesn't even make commercial sense for Nominet to have a 5 year gap, by the time businesses have to actually register their .UK domain nominet could have had 4 x yearly renewals from all of them.

 

[Lovekraft]

I agree, 5 years is far too long.
As it stands, the mere mention of .uk just confuses the majority of the public still. I'm hoping that changes but Nominet haven't pushed it as much as i expected given how badly they wanted to launch it.

 

[anthony]

In short, it was all a shitty idea by Nominet, and the 5 year rights option was one of the things offered to allow it to get through. The reality is, come the end of the 5 year period, the domaining community will be there to mop up all the domains not opted for, and ironically it will only be at that point that you might see some end users emerging as those domains are then sold on. If any success does come to the .uk fiasco, it'll be that domaining community you'll have to thank, and certainly not Nominet!

 

[invincible]

Commercially it would have made sense to open registrations FCFS and reap the rewards. Portfolio holders wanted five years and advocates of small businesses having to find the funds to rebrand did too. This however is all moot because it is what we have.

 

[Sound]

The best idea is to give everyone one years free registration after the four years so that they have a choice to let it drop or keep the following year.

Much better than sending out marketing emails and hoping they understand that they have to register the .uk domain or someone else will take it from them...

 

[martin-s]

The best idea is to give everyone one years free registration after the four years so that they have a choice to let it drop or keep the following year.

That would certainly be an improvement.

 

[BeachLife]

If you just gave every .co.uk owner the .uk domain for free at the point of launch, automatically, then it would be their's to lose 12 months later

It seems to me they are about to do this, to a certain extent, via the back door. See free one year .uk.

If the big registrars push it then I can imagine a lot of customers taking it up and then letting them drop (or be picked up by the registrar!) in 12 months time. Thankfully they stopped short of allowing registrars to do it without positive consent by the domain owner.

 

[foz]

What are the odds Nominet screwing with the five years?

e.g. Changed our mind guys, it's happening in six months!

 

[Edwin]

What are the odds Nominet screwing with the five years?

e.g. Changed our mind guys, it's happening in six months!

Absolutely zero, if you mean shortening it.

I can just about imagine they might extend the deadline further if they really feel that .uk take-up isn't sufficient to insulate them from the PR catastrophe that will follow general release - but I wouldn't count on it when planning anything!

 

[foz]

Absolutely zero, if you mean shortening it.

Yes. Who are they contractually obligated to? Themselves

 

[Skinner]

Will they shorten it ?

Hell No, they will keep promoting (read: discount) it, and slowly talk people into handing more cash over and maximise their income.

Anyone who knows anything is waiting for the winner to be announced, so they pull you in with an offer and they know they got you in chains until 2020 when the new king is announced.

Those who are sucked in, who don't know, let them drop and a speculator picks them up and again they hold them until 2020.

*edit 2020 is a guess on the winner since theres no hold back then.

 

[martin-s]

Is this another example of how badly damaged faith in .uk is becoming?

mot-history.net

Not mot.gov.uk ??

I'm not sure if the motoring press are being scammed here - is this a fake site as the real tool is still live here:

https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/

The whois shows an NI tech company.

Press:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-ne...u-check-uk-car-mileage-and-mot-history-online
http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/18/you-c...y-putting-in-its-registration-number-5446660/
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-3279040/New-website-lets-old-car-road-today.html

 

[anthony]

Is this another example of how badly damaged faith in .uk is becoming?

mot-history.net

Not mot.gov.uk ??

I'm not sure if the motoring press are being scammed here - is this a fake site as the real tool is still live here:

https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/

The whois shows an NI tech company.

Press:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-ne...u-check-uk-car-mileage-and-mot-history-online
http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/18/you-c...y-putting-in-its-registration-number-5446660/
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-3279040/New-website-lets-old-car-road-today.html

They are different portals though, the first is the new beta for MOT history, whereas the latter has been around in a couple of formats for quite some years regarding road tax. Neither have reported the same information as far as i can recall.

 

[Skinner]

Wasn't this why lots of .uk were reserved because they weren't going to be staying on gov.uk ? .net seem popular since .nhs.uk is admin'd by ja.net so there is a precedent for .net usage.

 

[martin-s]

If I was in charge of Governmental domain use, I'd probably be putting memorability and trust at the top of my must-have list.

Someone, somewhere, really doesn't get it.

 

[Murray]

I think they knew it was a bad idea so the 5 years was just to help prolong it before a lot of co.uk's and uk's get split and it's a mess.

 

[invincible]

List is within http://registrars.nominet.org.uk/sites/default/files/sldr_rules_140507_final_0.pdf I believe.