My response to Nominet's V2 consultation

[Edwin]

I've now published my response to the consultation.

You can download it from:
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/v2response2.pdf

Please feel free to blog/tweet/talk about it if you think that's in any way useful or productive.

And above all, please submit your own response to the consultation, even if it's only a few paragraphs. With only 700 responses last time, and far less apparent interest this time, every reply will count for a lot more!

 

[Stephen]

Link added

Thanks, have added a link to your .uk feedback report from www.YourUk.org.uk

 

[AssetDomains]

Thanks Edwin just tweeted it.

 

[viceroy]

Thanks for making it public, I must say - it looks really good, lots of effort has been put in! It really annoys me that you can do such an in depth report while Nominet can't even tell us how many .co.uk holders would not get rights to the corresponding .uk - it's been nearly a year and they have the database!

 

[Nigel]

thanks - well written - well researched - great supporting documents

 

[Edwin]

BTW, it's amazing how many of Nominet's stated reasons for .uk are nothing to do with domain names, and all to do with Nominet's prestige, power - and its income stream.

See "Appendix F" starting on page 42 of the document for a table breaking down Nominet's supposed "justifications" for .uk.

Also worth noting that Nominet seem quite happy to use statements that are "true but irrelevant". For example, from Leslie Cowley's blog post:

We also believe that size matters. Retaining and growing the size of the registry is important, and not simply for commercial reasons. Nominet operates in the public interest, and we believe in an internet that is trusted, secure and safe.

http://www.nominet.org.uk/news/blog/time-change

A trusted, secure and safe internet? What's not to like? Who would disagree with the sentiment?

But will .uk lead to "a trusted, secure and safe internet"? There's no credible argument being put forward to support that being the case, and when you look at the details the launch of .uk is likely to achieve the opposite.

This is their basic formula for justifying .uk:

1) State various things that are true (and therefore can't be disputed) and sound "nice" (not necessarily realistic, or achievable things - ideals to strive for are fine)
2) State something else
3) Imply that the thing in 2) is necessary for the thing in 1) to happen, when either there are no causal links between them, or where 2) would not lead to 1) but the reverse

That makes it incredibly hard to argue against, because all the things in 1) ARE true, so suddenly the onus is to prove the lack of a causal link!

 

[websaway]

I don't know how opposed I would be if Nominet charged an opt in annual fee to allow the .uk to resolve to a co.uk domain.

 

[Edwin]

I don't know how opposed I would be if Nominet charged an opt in annual fee to allow the .uk to resolve to a co.uk domain.

Could you expand on that idea a little more?

 

[websaway]

Could you expand on that idea a little more?

Simply that, nothing more, the .uk could not be registered and would not be a stand alone for email etc. It would just be a case where for overseas searchers in particular if they typed example.uk it would resolve to example.co.uk
The fee might be more than has been suggested to compensate for those that did not opt in.

There would be no legal implications.
It would not expand registrations, but neither will the current proposals because it will be absolutely necessary to own both ( which galvanises the claims that it is purely a money making exercise).


Just to reiterate my original comment
I don't know how opposed I would be if Nominet charged an opt in annual fee to allow the .uk to resolve to a co.uk domain.