Nominet and domain tasting

[invincible]

Do Joe public actually know tld or cctld is of the site there visiting, the extension could be anything if you put a big banner with welcome to whatever.co.uk on the site they will believe its that….

Can you qualify your statement with any kind of evidence, or is it just your opinion?

If those selling counterfeit goods didn't think that the .uk extension was desirable, they wouldn't register their domain names within it. Given that they do register their domain names within it, Nominet is in a position to do something about that. Of course there is the possibility that those wanting to engage in illegal activity will use other extensions but I'd rather that than have .uk's perceived value dilute. People do trust .uk. I think that is worth trying to hold onto, to a reasonable extent. One source.

Taking down the site does not stop the crooks from processing the payments (banks wouldn’t without a court order…)

Once the domain names resolving to the site are suspended, no more traffic to the site via those domain names thus no more transactions from traffic that would have arrived at the site via those domain names. It doesn't stop initial visitors but subsequent, after the take down, visitors are protected.

Why should nominet..? It doesn’t help co.uk as the crooks could open a new one up within minutes…

I can register a domain name within minutes. I cannot get traffic to it within minutes unless I buy it in. Are these crooks buying AdWords?

“criminal” sites do it for financial gain very few people are sending cash through the post, It comes through the banks… Stopping the ability to take money would stop a much higher % of people being conned or other illegal activities..?

Cutting off access to the sites by suspending the domain names resolving people to them is one extremely effective way of cutting the traffic to the sites, therefore cutting off the money. If people cannot get to the sites, they cannot part with money. If it wasn't considered effective, why would the police or Nominet consider it as an option?

If someone was running a web site selling obviously counterfeit goods, why wouldn't you want to suspend their domain name and prevent them from doing it?

It’s locking the door when the horse has bolted mentality

It's nothing of the sort. Suspending the domain names prevents traffic getting to these sites, therefore prevents further people being duped. How is that akin to taking action too late, as you are suggesting? If the domain names weren't suspended, traffic to the sites still flows. Stop one payment system, which is likely to be based abroad, then the crooks will set up another. The advantage of suspending the domain names is it can be done by a UK organisation (Nominet) that the British Police can build an effective relationship with; almost certainly much easier and more effective than trying to deal with umpteen foreign payment processing companies.

The police are there to enforce the laws of the land and nominet are self appointed neither are qualified or should be judge and jury executioner …

Just to mention, here, I am so sick of reading the "judge, jury and executioner" idiom on this forum. The police are there to, and do, enforce the law. Nobody is talking about Nominet making decisions to suspend domain names it somehow feels are illegal on its own.

We have a judicial system already if there’s evidence apply for a court order within an hour or less have one… Is nom going to have someone there 24 hrs a day?

I imagine Nominet do have people on call 24/7. It wouldn't surprise me if at least one technically capable person is on hand 24/7 and even on-site at Nominet HQ. Also, if/when some kind of process comes in for suspending these kind of domain names there will most certainly be some kind of system to allow the Registrant to reinstate them very quickly. Obviously it shouldn't get to that because a legitimate Registrant will provide up to date contact details so will be contactable by the Police or Nominet before the domain name is suspended and will be able to provide a genuine explanation about why their site is apparently selling counterfeit goods (or whatever else).

It does nothing to address issues for being conned by a com, org, net, eu, de etc or even a co.uk (Surely they can’t do it before someone’s been conned ..?) it should be important to stop all? what about people fooled by dodgy emails to send out there bank, ebay details etc.
I can’t see its stopping people losing £ or new .co.uk con site opening in minutes what exactly other than spin Pr would it do…

Just because it probably does little/nothing for the other extension, perhaps because the Registrars or Registries are located outside of the UK doesn't mean it shouldn't do something for .uk.

Rogue emails are different because they are usually sent from compromised computers, I believe. If they contain links to websites operated under .uk then the same applies. The emails are just a source of finding traffic. Suspending the .uk gives the same result.

I don't think anyone can get away from the obvious which is that suspending a domain name prevents traffic from resolving through to a web site via it. So suspending domain names linking to rogue web sites will reduce the traffic, and therefore help contain the fraud.

 

[monaghan]

Personally, I have no objection to a site being shut down and where time is considered to be an issue, would also agree that they shouldn't have to go through large legal hoops, however, I would suggest that there has to be sufficient evidence before the site is taken down.

Is hitting the domain the right way to go though? Surely anyone with sufficient capabilities to setup a fraudulent site going to use a non-UK route to register a domain and host it off-shore?

Perhaps the police should be approaching the ISP in the first instance to suspend the site, take a backup of it and then to release the backup once the police have the other evidence in place?

 

[Edwin]

What would it take (legally) to get a real-world store or office shut down, even temporarily? Surely the burden of proof should be no less strict for an online store or website? After all, it could well be someone's livelihood just as much as a shop would be, so why should it be any easier to take that away from them just because technologically it probably involves not much more than a few clicks of a mouse?

 

[invincible]

What would it take (legally) to get a real-world store or office shut down, even temporarily?

That would depend on what the real-world store or office was engaged in. If it was a warehouse growing Cannabis, not much. If it was a council flat pressing out counterfeit credit cards or producing counterfeit DVDs then probably not much either. Even dealing with a market trader selling counterfeit goods doesn't require a court order.

Surely the burden of proof should be no less strict for an online store or website?

That depends if one treats all web sites as equal.

After all, it could well be someone's livelihood just as much as a shop would be, so why should it be any easier to take that away from them just because technologically it probably involves not much more than a few clicks of a mouse?

If they're involved in criminal activity, why shouldn't it be as easy as it is in the real world as per my original examples?

 

[afx]

Okay. Good. I should actually correct my original statement because I think it was 1800, and not 1200! However given that you are aware of the take down of all of those domain names, back in 2009, would you agree that this isn't simply "straight off the back of the wiki leaks hysteria"?

Also, have you heard or read anything from anyone that claimed to be connected with any of the domain names that were taken down in 2009? Have you read any complaints from their Registrants or read about any domain names being reinstated if, perhaps, mistakes were made?



Surely, though, if the police had to make an application to the court before doing anything to counter suspected illegal activities, many such activities would outpace the police's abilities to stop them quickly?

At the moment the police don't have to apply to a court to seize counterfeit DVDs or other goods from traders at a car boot sale. However, in the case of the Internet, if they want to shut down web sites selling counterfeit goods they need to apply to a court. What makes selling counterfeit goods on the Internet more illicit, is that those doing so have much more of an ability to purport to be legitimate outlets rather than obvious counterfeit outlets. If someone is standing at a car boot sale selling Addidas trainers at knock down prices, there's more likely to be an assumption by all that they're either stolen or counterfeit. Spend a few hours making a decent web site, with a legitimate sounding .co.uk, and many more people might not realise.

Do you appreciate my points here?



The Digital Economy Bill doesn't really relate to this consultation. I agree that there are flaws in that bill. However I don't believe it is correct to muddy the waters by linking the two. Nominet is not the former Labour Government.



Ebay already has very reasonable take down procedures. Example: I wanted to buy an iPhone 4 a few days before going abroad to travel, last year. Apple.com said 3 weeks so my only option was eBay UK. I monitored several sales for SIM free, sealed iPhone 4's and I set AuctionSniper to bid on one. Just before the auction ended, eBay pulled it. They suspected fraud for some reason. I ended up bidding on another auction, or maybe it was a BIN (I forget), and got the iPhone 4 as advertised the next day. Also, several years ago, for some unknown reason, eBay locked my account because they thought I was somehow linked to someone they suspected was doing something naughty (I've forgotten as it was 5 years ago). They'd only unlock my account after I communicated with them and faxed a copy of my passport to prove I actually existed/was real. I did that and the account was unlocked very quickly. I've still no idea what the original issue was but they obviously jumped on something they didn't like.

Given eBay has take down procedures, and actively polices their site, there is no need for the police to consider taking the site down as a whole. Those domain names related to obvious scammer run sites which had no such self policing procedures because, by the very nature of them being scammer run sites, they had no interest in policing themselves!



I believe the point of the consultation is to debate this so it isn't so open and shut. There have to be rules and procedures before the police can act. Reasonable evidence of criminal activity?



I don't doubt that the list of domain names wasn't looked at by Nominet's legal department before a decision was made. Given they deal with domain names every day of the week, who else involved in the legal profession would you suggest is more qualified to make decisions about this?



It seems, to me, that you're perhaps the one who is jumping to quite large conclusions over what this consultation means. The point of the consultation is to consult over the issue and try to define a structure whereby certain sites can be quickly pulled based on yet to be defined appropriate criteria. Do you really think it has to be an all or nothing situation (i.e. any power given is too much, so therefore give none)?



Sure they can. But I'd rather they did it from anything other than .uk. I don't want my interests in that devalued.

Below response to your questions / points. Probably easier to read than more quoting.

I wouldn't agree with you re: the timing. IMO acting now is absolutely pertinent to the wiki leaks debate. Harking back to 2009 dredging up the pulled domains is just fuelling the argument to create a new law granting more power to the police. I see a much bigger agenda here and scam sites is not it. SOCA is not part of the police as we know it, they are a government department independent of the home office and the freedom of information act does not apply to them. I think you need to look a little deeper into the motivations of this law. If any government body should be asking for new laws to protect consumers because internet scams and fraud are rife, it should be the serious fraud office (which is a separate entity altogether and independent of SOCA).

Re: counterfeit goods. Because a miniscule number (relatively speaking) of websites are selling these goods we should apply a law that is applicable to 9 million .uk domains? I don't agree with you.

The digital economy act although not relating to this consultation is absolutely relevant to the debate. I do not want a government and parliament incapable of learning from its mistakes and continues to pass egregious laws that pave the way for gross misuse (ACS Law) which turns out were neither legal nor enforceable. I wonder where the sensible judge was or anyone with a counter opinion at the time of the passing the digital economy act, my guess is not even in the debate. Autocratic government of old and new does not tolerate counter opinion to decisions already made (confirmation bias).

Regards the debate / consultation, I think it is an open and shut case in as much as the law will be passed, the debate is fluff to a decision already taken. You mention reasonable evidence being used to determine whether the site should be pulled down. Reasonable evidence should be put to CPS like every other alledged criminal activity. It is the CPS who decides what is evidence, not the police. The police simply put forward what they believe to be evidence. Breaking this process and leaving it all to the police should not happen IMO. As already mentioned there is the odd exception that doesn't need repeating.

I would say Nominet should be the last people to decide on what is pulled, they are too close to the issue, much like the DRS IMO. It should be an outside body made up of different sectors of the internet community.

You're entitled to your view that I'm jumping to conclusions, but I'm not as keen as you are to believe 100% of what is being put forward as the debate is what this is really about. Furthermore the example I mentioned is entirely possible if the law is passed as requested by SOCA.

Re: all or nothing law. Nothing would be infinitely preferable to all IMO. I don't see the world of .uk falling around our ears because we do not have this law. My contention is there are already remedies in place to deal with this and the urgency or need for this simply doesn't exist. Would you describe the digital economy act somewhere in the middle? Would you consider the government green lighting the two tier internet somewhere in the middle ? Please provide me some examples of balanced laws affecting the internet and UK citizens.

The scams will still persist, it will be a total waste of time and money and we'll end up with a government body having greater control of information in the .uk namespace. As for your assets being devalued by scammers, I have no idea how you quantify this.

 

[namealot]

Can you qualify your statement with any kind of evidence, or is it just your opinion?


I don't think anyone can get away from the obvious which is that suspending a domain name prevents traffic from resolving through to a web site via it. So suspending domain names linking to rogue web sites will reduce the traffic, and therefore help contain the fraud.

Think it may prove people don't look at what there clicking... Con men etc could easily use ad words (they probally not using there own credit card details..?)
and google would be closed down....This experiment was done by didierstevens http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/05/07/is-your-pc-virus-free-get-it-infected-here/ He used google ad which said “Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!”