I spoke to Nominet today, because Fasthosts had registered all these 'rights' .uk domains on June 10th and June 11th, including one of mine. Nominet seem to take the line that this is alright really, because it's giving people more time to claim their .uk name, a bit like extending the reservation date by a year. Nominet guy argued that it's better this way than someone being blackmailed to buy a matching domain at an extortionate price. I don't buy that argument. People have had FIVE years to do that. Also, Nominet is meant to operate to well-planned standards, as the guardian of UK domains. These mass-registrations by registrars goes against the stated intent of releasing the unclaimed domain names to the public this July. The fact this has been coupled with the offer of free registration made it all the easier for registrars to mass-register: in fact, it was like an open invitation.
I have only one domain I wanted to claim as a right, and at present I can't even do that, until I phone up Fasthosts individually. Thousands of people won't do that. The process is messed up. As someone has said, a company like Fasthosts aren't in the auction business - they are just hoping to give people time to sell them more registrations. But what will be worth watching is whether some registrars try to auction off names they've mass-registered once June 24th is past.
I can't believe, after the crazy and fraudulent .info release and the similar abuse of process with .biz, that nearly 20 years later simple process still can't be enforced, for the benefit of the general user. I ran a whistle-blowing site back in the day, called 'The Internet Challenge', where I called out registrars who were using fake copyrights to claim .info and .biz names. Even Afilias directors were faking rights of access to get choice names in their own release. Mass-registration of .uk domains, when the rights holders have not requested them, should have been ruled out from the beginning. It's not rocket science.
