Domaining, dropcatching and the secondary market

[seb]

Well since the council elections this week and now the SNP have control (unless there is a recount) i'd say Scotland is heading towards .scot

I assume you mean Scottish Parliament elections

I'm not sure that another outcome at the elections would have affected the Scottish campaign for .scot to be honest. I don't think it's a question of bypassing the .uk SLD policy.. I suspect they would prefer .scot anyway.[/quote]


seb

 

[retired_member6]

Devolution, I hate Labour. it's a good job there's an unelected phoney european government these days or they'd be a war.

 

[Whois-SearchWhois-Search is verified member.]

Let's say Nominet got permission/contract to run .scot and .cym

Do you think they would run it on the same basis as .co.uk ?

i.e. would they continue to have a FCFS model or would they have another model like a quota or limit applications?

 

[Jay Daley]

Out of curiosity what basis is it immune from DRS? (I'm not arguing you're wrong.. I'm just curious as to where this originates from? DRS P&P?)

Because we don't have a contract with ourselves.

 

[grandin]

Conflict of interest

Is it a conflict of interest if you can register and sell domain names??

I personally think it depends on whether an unfair advantage can be obtained ie. A new tld is introduced and your clients pre register domain names with you as a registrar but you as registrar register those names for your own benefit (directly or indirectly).

Lee

 

[disruptive]

I would like to draw the analogy with land.

1. To a certain extent names are like land. Both have a limited supply (yes names are limited in number, consider the English natural language words).
2. Buying a name confers the owner the rights to develop the name in accordance with the terms set-out.
3. Everybody accepts that in a free markets, companies are free to purchase available land as a speculative entitlement. We are not all jumping and down because Barratt homes because Barratt are sitting on acres and acres of unused land.
4. If I have an idea to build something, I want to obtain the land/domain as a first port of call often. I may not get around to building or maybe inviable, but without obtaining the land/domain any further thought about the project is futile.
5. Domainers are early adopters - the Guinea pigs of the internet. I reason that many domainers are fledgling innovators..spotting trends and acting on it. We cannot have a closed market where domains are only given to "Nominet approved buyers".

Any attepmpt to stamp out domainers and speculation will lead to an artificial market and one that will ultimatley come to haunt Nominet. I doubt they could actually enforce anything, plus as soon as another body comes along with less regulation and allows speculation...their domain base will grow people will become used to the next extension and voila...Nominet is no more.

 

[Beasty]

Because we don't have a contract with ourselves.

Does that mean that Nominet UK is uniquely privileged in not having to sign up to the Registrant's T&Cs (including DRS) that everyone else has to sign up for?

 

[Jay Daley]

Does that mean that Nominet UK is uniquely privileged in not having to sign up to the Registrant's T&Cs (including DRS) that everyone else has to sign up for?

We can't sign up to the registrant Ts&Cs because we can't enter into a contract with ourselves. So no we cannot be DRS'd for a domain that is registered to us.

This position is not quite unique. The registrants of SLDs (e.g. UKERNA for .ac.uk) also do not sign up to the Registrant Ts&Cs.

 

[Beasty]

We can't sign up to the registrant Ts&Cs because we can't enter into a contract with ourselves. So no we cannot be DRS'd for a domain that is registered to us.

This position is not quite unique. The registrants of SLDs (e.g. UKERNA for .ac.uk) also do not sign up to the Registrant Ts&Cs.

Thanks for the reply Jay. You could easily hold your domains in a wholly Nominet owned but seperate legal entity, which could enter into a contract with its parent company.

Anyway, even if you don't want to do that, what prevents you from volunteering to agree to be bound by the T&Cs? If its sauce for the goose...

 

[seb]

Let's say Nominet got permission/contract to run .scot and .cym

Do you think they would run it on the same basis as .co.uk ?

i.e. would they continue to have a FCFS model or would they have another model like a quota or limit applications?

.scot and .cym would involve going through the ICANN process which could very well put in different restrictions.. I'm not sure to what extent that would be Nominet's choice.. We could find the Welsh & Scottish communities want local presence requirements, etc. (I have no info on this at all.. just speculating for debating purposes) so I think it's premature to consider models.

That said, I suspect they would be FCFS open models but probably with sunrise to begin with, etc. (regardless of who would be running them) due to trends more than anything else.

seb

 

[Jay Daley]

Let's say Nominet got permission/contract to run .scot and .cym

Do you think they would run it on the same basis as .co.uk ?

i.e. would they continue to have a FCFS model or would they have another model like a quota or limit applications?

Just to add to what Seb has said - .scot and .cym would probably need to pass the ICANN Sponsored TLD (sTLD) process. This is different from a gTLD process because it insists upon restrictions on ensuring that only the defined community can register names. This may mean that FCFS is still used but only by a limited group of registrars/registrants.

For more info see section C on page 6 of http://www.icann.org/tlds/stld-apps-19mar04/PostAppA.pdf