As someone who believes policy should be strictly implemented and rules should be complied with, I don't approve of the way some of these large registrars mass-registered .uk names without the consent of the so-called 'registrants' in whose names they registered them.
Because of the problems over abusive use of domains, and also because it's the set down process, a registrant is meant to be involved in their own registrations and, specifically, according to the rules which Nominet sets out for Registrars, the registrant must give advance undertaking for each registration, that they will comply with the Nominet terms and conditions, for example over abusive use. And Registrars are rule-bound to ensure that Registrants comply before they go ahead with the Registrations.
These 123-reg name drops (about a million of them) are the result of the free registrations made 2 years ago. They cost 123-reg nothing, but if renewed then they would cost them millions for what is primarily domain trash. I believe GoDaddy have also registered .uk names without reference to their so-called 'registrants' (I stand to be corrected on that one if I am wrong).
What is definite is that Fasthosts and 1&1 Ionos mass-registered hundreds of thousands of .uk names last June when Nominet's policy of 5 year's opportunity for the .co.uk holders was coming to an end the next month. This was done with Nominet's nod of the head. Nominet knew it was happening, but decided informally to suspend the requirement of registrants to sign consents to T&C in advance, and to allow the large Registrars to go ahead and effectively extend the 5 year period to a 6 year period. Justification: Nominet say their info told them that many people *still* hadn't got their heads around the process. Therefore, rather than the names going to namecatchers and cybersquatters, they felt it was in best interests to let the Registrars retain the names for one year more, which because coincidentally (???) there was a free .uk promotion at exactly the right time, the large Registrars were able to do.
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My objection is to the informal bending of clearly-stated policy, and waiving of the rules. Over and over again, with other Registries, I've seen how 'laissez-faire' oversight has led (with or without collusion) to abuse of process and a kind of wild-west environment. The .info trademark name release (prior to general release) was perhaps the classic example, with directors of the Registry (Afilias) registering quality names themselves with fake trademarks. ICANN were going to just let the false registration of 100,000+ domains go ahead with fake registrations, until the internet community protested enough, and they re-ran the release of those names.
Rules matter, because the Internet and its namespace matter, and fair process is really important. That's my objection to what Nominet argue was simply a practical decision in people's best interests. I don't believe it was.
I expect 123-reg to release these suspended domains, except where the registrant requests the renewal at the last moment. I don't know how each Registrar operates last-minute renewals, but all tag holders can do that, and quite often do, so I expect a few names might be 'saved' at the last minute like that. However, I haven't been convinced that 123-reg are doing that themselves (for example, to auction them later) and I think the vast majority even of good names will drop in the coming weeks. I hope so, because some nice ones have my name on
