Is Nominet violating UK competition law?

[atlas]

The Register seems to think so. According to a lengthy article by Kieren McCarthy at:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/26/great_british_domain_name_ripoff/

According to this article, Nominet is overcharging .uk customers (most members of the forum) to subsidise running other extensions. From the article:

the CMA takes a very dim view of a dominant company if it is seen to use its position to eliminate competition or leverage its position in a related or neighbouring market.

The clearest signs of such abuse are typically:

• Predatory pricing – where a company charges less than the market rate in order to keep out competitors.
• Cross-subsidisation – where a company charges higher prices to one group of consumers to subsidise lower prices for another group.
• Price inflation – where a company uses its control of a market to increase prices beyond what is reasonably justified.

Nominet appears guilty of all three.

 

[RobM]

Nominet using registration money to fund profitable ventures?..... never!

 

[Edwin]

I think the answer is probably "yes, but they can and will get away with it".

After so many times fighting them and ending up on the losing side, it looks like one battle too far... But I live in vague hope that some of the complaints, if they were really filed, will find a soft target.

 

[pberry4032]

Can someone tell me more about the middle point? Where is this happening?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RobM]

See. There you go - all cleared up Nothing to see here.

 

[atlas]

It's ironic that the article is generating more interest outside this forum than in it. Perhaps people here are sick of fighting with Nominet and have given up?

Anyhow, the article now has 25 comments. As well, it has been picked up by Michael Berkens as a "must-read" story:

http://www.thedomains.com/2016/09/2...ercharges-uk-customers-pay-cheaper-new-gtlds/

 

[RobM]

Ahhh semantics. The last argument when the main point can't be refuted.

 

[Edwin]

It's ironic that the article is generating more interest outside this forum than in it. Perhaps people here are sick of fighting with Nominet and have given up?

Certainly true for me. There were a lot of straws, but the last was seeing someone I expected to be a domainer champion when I voted for him for NED turn into Nominet's biggest apologist, effectively killing every thread about them.

Of course it was a lost cause before then - apart from getting .uk tweaked from the hideous V1 and the slightly less bad V2, what did we ever really achieve except a whole lot of heartache? Nominet are more out of control now than they have ever been...

If I sound bitter, it's because I am. I have made my feelings on the issue clear for years.

 

[monaghan]

Just the sort of point I've been raising for ages, Nominet have far too much money, just look at what's poured out each year into the trust (I have no issue with charity, just don't see why it should be mandatory), the prices have gone up from £2.50/year to £3.75/year. Yes they need to invest in R&D and improving their systems and staff and need to make some profit to do this.

These new TLD's are not available to the average member as ICAAN membership entry bar is too high for many small organisations to take advantage so the little guy sees nothing other than price rises and products we can't access.

 

[monaghan]

The majority of new gTLDs are available to almost anyone wishing to retail them if they become a reseller of one or more ICANN accredited registrars. Becoming that is far cheaper and quicker than the associated financial and technical costs of becoming ICANN accredited and then accredited with the various gTLD operators, obtaining insurance, indemnities and making multiple prepayments to the various extension providers. A recent conversation I had with a small ICANN accredited registrar echoed this sentiment. One can become a reseller and begin selling new gTLDs practically overnight.

Any TLD (including .UK) is available to anyone who opens a reseller account, my comment is that OUR membership fees and OUR .UK sales are funding (propping up?) these new TLD's yet the only option we have is to go via a 3rd party to buy from our own company.

Yes, I'm aware I can resign my membership and go via a reseller if I don't like Nominet, but the cr*p service I got from resellers was the reasoning for joining Nominet all those years back!

Calling an EGM is more or less pointless as Nominet has been engineered into a position where a few companies control the vote

 

[aZooZa]

The donation to the Nominet Trust isn't guaranteed to be made and the amount donated is ultimately decided upon by the Nominet Board each year based on a proposal submitted by the Trust. The Nominet Board could chose not to donate anything (or a different amount than that requested) but as the Trust cannot solicit donations from any other funding source besides Nominet it wouldn't last very long without being funded by Nominet once the previously donated funding had been spent. The Nominet Trust assists with fulfilling some of Nominet's public purpose objectives. Members voted on introducing this into the company Mem & Arts several years ago.

Interesting. Is there a link to a synopsis of the donations per year to date?

 

[aZooZa]

@invincible Yes I'll ask, thanks David.

 

[Bailey]

I think the answer is probably "yes, but they can and will get away with it".
.

I DO think UK as a domain space is pretty much destroyed as a future entity. The arguments for .uk don't bear fruit as much as the historic double-barrel .co.uk have (and will lose)

I''m surprised Edwin hasn't drawn a parallel with .jp and .co.jp (There is a parallel to be had)

 

[aZooZa]

From an aesthetic POV, of course domain.uk is better than domain.co.uk. The .co. element is totally irrelevant unless you really insist on having a 'business qualifier'. My views have chopped and changed over the years but I'm in the domain.uk corner now. It's particularly important to Simon and me now because we have just purchased a very prime business generic which we want to develop. The .com and underlying business sold recently for over $500 million so we need to get this one right. Our exit time frame would be about three years so it's an important decision.

If anyone has any more input it would be much appreciated; i.e. pros and cons of using domain.uk instead of domain.co.uk for a very top-tier business generic.

Regards, Dale.

 

[aZooZa]

@invincible Yes I'll ask, thanks David.

VERY helpful reply from Nominet as usual (sincerely):

"The information you require is contained within the annual reports. So that you can get exactly the information you would like, here is the link to the last three annual reports:"

http://www.nominet.uk/about/corporate-governance/annual-reports/

The responder, Tony Lally, also kindly attached the reports from 2008 - 2012.

I'm looking through them...

 

[Sound]

Looks like some people working at Nominet towers are not happy about the way the company is run.

http://m.forums.theregister.co.uk/user/81837/

 

[signature]

Would a genuine employee still be working for a company that has long indicated its intentions to diversify if they were as disgruntled as that comment poster?

A lot of people stays in jobs they don't like for a lot of reasons, that does not make them a fake or ability to spell corectly.

Also you seems to defend Nominet a lot on here in your post, although you said you don't, but you do, most people voted for you here because we want some kind of voice inside Nominet but looks like you have turn to a voice for Nominet in here.

Just my observation.

 

[RobM]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. That's nominet. The top few who are making a lot of money by these 'decisions' must really be laughing hard at having sad people stick up for them for no money.

 

[signature]

Odd how this apparently disgruntled anonymous Nominet employee popped up and posted within the comments section of that article but hasn't apparently posted anywhere else, such as here or on any other domain name forum or blog to date.

Looks like you miss my point completely, I was not defending the article and your reply just confirm my earlier post.

 

[signature]

I don't know what you think you mean by "some kind of voice within Nominet" because Nominet is simply a company that employs people that are ever changing. It doesn't function without those people. Everyone that sits on the board contributes their voice and it's listened to. There's no hierarchy.

As a Nominet member @signature do you like seeing Nominet bashed?

You were voted in, that's the basis of my comments.

There are 5000+ members on Acorn, about few 100 active users, few reading this thread but you are the only one that thinks I should defend Nominet.

You even go as far as stating the same guy has never posted anywhere else, and trying to dissect the guy's post.

If the guy is a real Nominet employee, why would he show is face and make himself known if he wants to slag off the company he works for. Its called dis-lawyer employee. Loads of companies do have them.

I don't have issues if Nominet is been bashed for a correct reason, I have a lot of other issues I will like Nominet to deal with and this article is the least of my worry when it comes to Nominet bashing.

Let me give you a popular example of what I meant by this community voice, when the price was about to increase by 50%, you were here trying to justify it, the thread must have been 1000s of pages, most of your post was trying to lets know why the price is reasonable.

There are many post about Nominet here and you are always quick to jump in and defend Nominet, that's not been the voice of the people that voted for you.

If you read everything I said in this post and you still don't understand my point, well, have a good week.