Former Director of Policy, Emily Taylor joins in the ‘bottom-up’ debate

[Lucien Taylor]

Emily breaks her silence and joins in the ‘bottom-up’ debate, challenging Nominet’s view of its consultation efforts to date -

“At ICANN, policy proposals are formed bottom-up by and through the community. They say that people who like sausages or the law should never see either being made, and participating in ICANN can certainly provoke biliousness. It’s messy, takes ages, and sometimes appears pointless. Someone once compared it to being “nibbled to death by ducks”. It has much to un-recommend it, and certainly no commercial business would be able to survive if it took decisions through a bottom-up process.

Whatever Nominet’s proposals are, they are not bottom-up. “

The full article is on her blog site: http://www.emilytaylor.eu/articles/...6 /Whatever-Nominet's-proposals-are,-they-are
Good to see Emily getting better, recovering her health … and her voice!

 

[foz]

You go girl :razz:

The PAB was a buffer and micro community that could sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Paullas]

Good stuff.

 

[websaway]

An intelligent account of the problem.

 

[Nigel]

Thanks for posting this Lucien. Interesting insight to the workings of nominet during Emily's time there and the lack of accountability and transparency now that the PAB has gone. There was one consultation meeting that was recorded last November. I'm sure a lot of nominet executives wished that it hadn't been recorded as they didn't, in my opinion, fare well when questioned.

I think Emily could introduce a new blog, on the inadequate and undemocratic nature of the first and second consultations - in particular nominet's refusal to email existing registrants to inform them about the consultation. I think there will be a lot of anger later in the year from a lot of .co.uk owning businesses, should they lose out on the .uk version of their domain to an inferior extension. They'll be even angrier when they find out that there was a consultation - but they weren't told. Emily has the legal background to get to the heart of the reason on why nominet don't want to involve existing registrants and whether their reasonings have any legal basis.

In this link at around 35.40 mins a question was asked on why nominet hadn't contacted 10m people or businesses. Piers put the following question to Phil at nominet:

"What was our decision making thoughts when we decided not to contact or try to contact 10m people and small businesses and large businesses"

http://www.nominet.org.uk/how-participate/events/events-meetings/uk-registrar-conference

Phil answered:
"so the decision making behind the contacting of the 10m .co.uk holders, the current .co.uk holders, .org.uk holders and .me.uk holders, the thinking behind that was that, that actually Nick might be better, be better placed to answer this question, but from a legal perspective, from a data protection perspective we would be unable to do that from a perspective of potentially spamming people"

I took this up with nominet at the time and was told that this legal advice had been given by nominet's in house legal team. It would be interesting to know Emily's thoughts on this, and on the fact that nominet have decided they will be emailing all existing registrants should their current proposals be adopted. So its not spam to sell to them but spam to consult them. Nominet also plan an awareness campaign after the consultation has taken place. I think there is a big story here - but just needs someone with legal training to look at situation and set out the issues clearly.

 

[Lucien Taylor]

Hi Nigel,

It's Emily here, on Lucien's account. Thank you for your kind comments about the blog piece. I'm going to have a think about that data protection point.

My immediate reaction is that I agree with your point of view. If it's information about the contract of registration then I don't understand why it would be a problem to inform registrants. Let me have a look at the terms of the contract and the legislation, and try to work out what the arguments are on both sides, and I'll post.

Best wishes,

Emily

 

[Nigel]

Hi Emily

Thanks for your post. Nice to hear from you. You might find the following excerpts of emails between myself and Eleanor Bradley of Nominet helpful.

Kind regards, Nigel

Nigel to Eleanor Bradley 20 Dec 2012

"In your video you say that you are “really keen to hear feedback” and that you are “going out and speaking to stakeholders and engaging with those people who would be impacted by this change…”. These comments are completely at odds with your decision to not send an email to your millions of existing customers. You know that owners of .co.uk domains are the group most likely to be ‘impacted’ by this change, yet you have deliberately decided, to keep them in the dark about direct.uk. It would have been a fairly simple task for you to email these customers - they certainly deserve to know - and I am sure many would have provided the feedback you say you are looking for. I understand that some of your meetings were very poorly attended and one was cancelled (as only one person responded) which is not surprising if you didn’t invite existing registrants. Please note that I am not using this email to discuss the details of direct.uk but simply for an answer to these three questions:

Who made the decision to not send an email about direct.uk to your existing customers?

Why did you not email your existing customers about direct.uk?

Please provide attendances for the meetings that took place around the country to discuss direct.uk?

I would be grateful if you could provide these three answers urgently. The deadline of 7th January is very close and I am anxious to do all I can for the nominet customers who will be impacted by this change, and who are currently unaware that this consultation is taking place. Thank you."


Eleanor Bradley to Nigel dated 28 Dec 2012

"Nominet sought legal advice on the specific question of whether we are able to email current registrants to alert them to the consultation. We were advised that whilst the Data Protection Act permits us to contact registrants in relation to the services we are already providing to them, direct.uk is a proposed new and separate service and so is not covered by this provision. In addition, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 expressly prohibits the use of email to contact customers in order to market similar products, unless the customer was given the option to opt out of receiving such emails at the time their details were collected. Whilst I’m sure some would argue that an email about the consultation is not direct marketing it is highly likely that others would disagree and would consider such an email to be spam."

Eleanor Bradley to Nigel 4 Jan 2013 (in reply to quite a long email from me)

"You are, of course, entitled to your opinion regarding the status of direct.uk as a new service. However, it is our view that sending out an email to every registrant of a .uk domain name is not compatible with Nominet’s legal obligations regarding its use of registrants’ personal data. The privacy policy to which you refer relates only to personal data collected from visitors to our website, not to the personal data of domain name registrants."

Nigel to Eleanor Bradley 10 Jan 2013
"In your email of 28 December 2012 you say that "Nominet sought legal advice on the specific question of whether we are able to email current registrants to alert them to the consultation". I take the term "sought legal advice" to mean external legal advisers (i.e. independent of Nominet). Is this the case?

In your latest reply you say that you do not share this "legal advice with third parties". Our company has, over many years, invested heavily in descriptive .co.uk domains, and will be greatly impacted if direct.uk proceeds in the way suggested in the consultation document. We believe that we have every right to see this legal advice. For the moment we would ask whether every member of the Board of Directors (i.e. those who sat and considered proceeding with the direct.uk consultation) were given a copy of this "legal advice".

In my email to you of 28 December 2012 I made the following comments and asked for an answer to a very important question. I would be grateful if you could address this now:

In view of the legal advice you received which stopped you sending emails to registrants, can I ask you how you propose informing registrants of the introduction of directuk if it proceeds in its current form? If your legal advisers believe that it is a ‘new service’ and that the Data Protection Act (and your interpretation of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003) prevents you from emailing registrants are you saying that no notice by email will be given to existing registrants of the chance to register a direct.uk domain if it proceeds? Will existing registrants need to rely on information from the media, press, and newspapers to find out about the possible launch of direct.uk?"

Eleanor Bradley to Nigel 15 Jan 2013

"The legal advice relating to the Data Protection Act was taken from our in house legal team. Nominet employs two qualified lawyers both of whom are experienced in contract law and Data Protection related matters. I am afraid that it is not the case that any third party has a “right” to receive a copy of this advice. I can confirm that Nominet’s Board approved both the consultation document in the form published and the consultation process. The process, as designed by the executive did not include a recommendation to contact every registrant of an existing .uk domain as it was felt that such mass emailing was inappropriate action for a domain name registry to take and instead set out to garner views from a broad range of stakeholders.

We have just completed the consultation on direct.uk, this is a genuine consultation and no decision has been taken on whether to proceed with direct.uk in its current or an alternative form. Similarly, no decision has been taken on how registrants of existing .uk domain names will be made aware of the launch of direct.uk if the decision is to proceed."

 

[Brassneck]

Hi Nigel,

It's Emily here, on Lucien's account. Thank you for your kind comments about the blog piece. I'm going to have a think about that data protection point.

My immediate reaction is that I agree with your point of view. If it's information about the contract of registration then I don't understand why it would be a problem to inform registrants. Let me have a look at the terms of the contract and the legislation, and try to work out what the arguments are on both sides, and I'll post.

Best wishes,

Emily

Emily

Would it not be better to start your own Acorn account for sake of transparency?

Stephen.

 

[Lucien Taylor]

Emily

Would it not be better to start your own Acorn account for sake of transparency?

Stephen.

Good point - Emily has joined and is just waiting for admin

 

[Emily Taylor]

In this link at around 35.40 mins a question was asked on why nominet hadn't contacted 10m people or businesses. Piers put the following question to Phil at nominet:

"What was our decision making thoughts when we decided not to contact or try to contact 10m people and small businesses and large businesses"

http://www.nominet.org.uk/how-participate/events/events-meetings/uk-registrar-conference

Phil answered:
"so the decision making behind the contacting of the 10m .co.uk holders, the current .co.uk holders, .org.uk holders and .me.uk holders, the thinking behind that was that, that actually Nick might be better, be better placed to answer this question, but from a legal perspective, from a data protection perspective we would be unable to do that from a perspective of potentially spamming people"

I took this up with nominet at the time and was told that this legal advice had been given by nominet's in house legal team. It would be interesting to know Emily's thoughts on this, and on the fact that nominet have decided they will be emailing all existing registrants should their current proposals be adopted. So its not spam to sell to them but spam to consult them. Nominet also plan an awareness campaign after the consultation has taken place. I think there is a big story here - but just needs someone with legal training to look at situation and set out the issues clearly.

Hi Nigel

I must say, I'm struggling to understand the reluctance on Nominet's part to inform registrants about these proposals to upend .uk.

I don't know what documents and other factors the legal team considered when giving the advice you refer to, so I won't try and second guess. I'll just make a couple of observations.

Data Protection legislation only covers individuals. It doesn't cover businesses, who are the majority of .uk registrants (I believe).

Likewise, sending unsolicited emails needs to be done with care, but the rules are fairly straightforward. The intervening period between consultation #1 and #2 could have been gainfully used to get some positive opt-in if Nominet were feeling really conservative about it. I had an email the other day from a credit card company inviting me to opt in to marketing communications, for example.

Another thing that could have been done, is that registrars (cough, "Channel Partners") could have been enlisted to reach out to .uk registrants if Nominet was reluctant to get in between the relationship between registrants and their registrars.

Whatever the details, I believe that currently very few people know about the proposals, and that Nominet has the resources and ability to get the message out if it wants to.

Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of how insular this domain name world is. The other day, I was speaking to a highly competent domain name/brand protection lawyer, who had no idea about the implications of the current proposals on UK businesses. If someone like that, who is comparatively well-informed about domain name matters, was taken by surprise, I believe that most UK businesses have no idea what is coming down the tracks.

Likewise, between us Lucien and I are members of the Federation of Small Businesses, and the British Computer Society. Both were present at the Round Table the other day. I have not seen a single word from either of those organisations to inform their membership of these proposals and their implications.

Regards

Emily

 

[Edwin]

Welcome to Acorn in your own right, Emily!

Likewise, between us Lucien and I are members of the Federation of Small Businesses, and the British Computer Society. Both were present at the Round Table the other day. I have not seen a single word from either of those organisations to inform their membership of these proposals and their implications.

Regarding the BCS, they've published this:
http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/50904

 

[Nigel]

Hi Nigel

I must say, I'm struggling to understand the reluctance on Nominet's part to inform registrants about these proposals to upend .uk.

I don't know what documents and other factors the legal team considered when giving the advice you refer to, so I won't try and second guess. I'll just make a couple of observations.

Data Protection legislation only covers individuals. It doesn't cover businesses, who are the majority of .uk registrants (I believe).

Likewise, sending unsolicited emails needs to be done with care, but the rules are fairly straightforward. The intervening period between consultation #1 and #2 could have been gainfully used to get some positive opt-in if Nominet were feeling really conservative about it. I had an email the other day from a credit card company inviting me to opt in to marketing communications, for example.

Another thing that could have been done, is that registrars (cough, "Channel Partners") could have been enlisted to reach out to .uk registrants if Nominet was reluctant to get in between the relationship between registrants and their registrars.

Whatever the details, I believe that currently very few people know about the proposals, and that Nominet has the resources and ability to get the message out if it wants to.

Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of how insular this domain name world is. The other day, I was speaking to a highly competent domain name/brand protection lawyer, who had no idea about the implications of the current proposals on UK businesses. If someone like that, who is comparatively well-informed about domain name matters, was taken by surprise, I believe that most UK businesses have no idea what is coming down the tracks.

Likewise, between us Lucien and I are members of the Federation of Small Businesses, and the British Computer Society. Both were present at the Round Table the other day. I have not seen a single word from either of those organisations to inform their membership of these proposals and their implications.

Regards

Emily

Hi Emily,

Thanks for all the info and welcome to the forum. Your observations are very helpful and show that nominet could have taken steps to involve existing registrants if they really wanted to. It worries me that Nominet appear to have been cultivating relationships with representatives of business - but never had any interest in speaking directly with the businesses that make up the vast majority of their existing registrations.

So take the FSB - they have, I believe, over 200,000 members. Now I always expected that they were one of the business groups that nominet and Ed Vaizey, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport referred to during the first consultation. I don't know if you are aware of the answer given by Ed Vaizey in Parliament in respect of the first consultation. Here's the link:

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans...25.h&s=section:wrans+speaker:24888#g135025.q0

and here's part of his answer:

"Nominet has informed Government that its consultation is gathering perspectives from a broad range of stakeholders—including small businesses and their representatives—to inform their decision-making. Nominet has stated that it will be carefully considering that feedback in line with the company's public purpose." (bold my emphasis)

When I read that bolded section I immediately thought of the FSB (as they must be the largest representative of small businesses in the UK). I thought that the FSB would have consulted its own members by way of a newsletter and then filled out the consultation response depending on the feedback they got from their members. At the time Nominet did not release any information as to who these 'representatives' were, but it cannot be right that nominet deliberately bypassed their own existing registrants and instead went to trade associations who cannot possibly speak for all of its members. As you are members of the FSB it might be worth finding out whether they did submit a response to the first consultation - and whether they did consult any of their members over this.

 

[Retired_member41]

Just for anyone newish to this business, did Emily prior to her discrimination ever speak about against nominet(whistleblow) etc, as from what I've heard, nominet while she was in position was as bad as it is now in the policy department and is to blame for most of the things happening now.

Only asking to see who all the players are in this saga.

 

[Emily Taylor]

Hi Caz

Thanks for the message.

Yes, the reason for my constructive dismissal from Nominet was that I had raised concerns (blew the whistle) which included the handling of an independent governance review, and statements prepared for Nominet's members about the independent governance review and denials that the company had called in the government in 2008.

I think that Nominet - whether it's now, or when I was there - does a lot of things well. Some things less well. As for what I thought - It's like most things that you spend 10 years doing. Somethings I was involved in, I'm not proud of. Some things I am proud of. I was proud of working with some great people.

One thing that I think is different these days, is the way that consultations are handled. When I was there we had the PAB. My recollection (and I know others on this list follow Nominet closely, so please correct me if I'm wrong) is that we also published consultation responses. When I submit consultation responses, I always find it interesting to look at what other people are saying on the issues, and it often helps me understand where the points of contention are - especially about things I'm not that deeply engaged in.

ICANN does a lot of things badly, but I think it runs public consultations very well indeed. This is a standard of transparency that Nominet should aspire to. I think the influences on its policy thinking prior to publication of proposals should be much more transparent too.

BTW Caz, I now campaign for whistleblowers' rights (www.tellsafely.org).

Kind regards

Emily

 

[Emily Taylor]

I thought that the FSB would have consulted its own members by way of a newsletter and then filled out the consultation response depending on the feedback they got from their members.

Hi Nigel

The FSB may well have put something out to its members, but we've not seen anything. I'm concerned that "talking to FSB" is being used as a proxy for "talking to small business", and that there might be nothing at the other end of that particular sausage machine. I don't think most small businesses are aware of consultations #1 or #2, or their likely impact.

If it was like that short paragraph that Edwin highlighted from the BCS - I don't think a newcomer to the debate would understand the likely impact of the proposals from that little paragraph.

Regards

Emily

 

[Retired_member41]

Thanks Emily,

Bewildered how they can act like they do, and you seem as credible as they come, so why isn't anyone listening? Madness.

 

[websaway]

Thanks Emily,

Bewildered how they can act like they do, and you seem as credible as they come, so why isn't anyone listening? Madness.

It seems to me they have fashioned a situation where they have become a law unto themselves.
That's OK if it's a parish council but where huge amounts of money are involved it's cause for concern

 

[bb99]

Bewildered how they can act like they do, and you seem as credible as they come, so why isn't anyone listening? Madness.

Sadly because Emily has spoken out and been through an employment tribunal with Nominet, she is easily painted as a "disgruntled former employee" with an axe to grind etc. It's very easy for those in disagreement with what she says to undermine her credibility this way, no matter how true/credible her words are.

 

[retired_member33]

I smell something

 

[Nigel]

Hi Nigel

The FSB may well have put something out to its members, but we've not seen anything. I'm concerned that "talking to FSB" is being used as a proxy for "talking to small business", and that there might be nothing at the other end of that particular sausage machine. I don't think most small businesses are aware of consultations #1 or #2, or their likely impact.

If it was like that short paragraph that Edwin highlighted from the BCS - I don't think a newcomer to the debate would understand the likely impact of the proposals from that little paragraph.

Regards

Emily

the correct course of action would be for the FSB to highlight the importance of this consultation to their members - particularly as most of their members will be .co.uk domain owners. They should also provide all their members with the direct link to the nominet consultation and tell them to fill in the nominet consultation form if they are an existing domain owner. Maybe they will do this - if they don't then they could be subject to severe criticism at a later date - after all what's the point of being a member if they don't keep you up date with important issues like this.