Nominet .co.uk Branding Campaign

[ANY-Web]

Am I the only one to be outraged by this email of Nominet's today?
Talk about not explaining the small print to your customers...
(small print: Oh, and by the way next year when we introduce .UK you may have to reprint all your new business cards and your brochures and repaint your van if you want to stay "relevant". Thank you for your 10 year registration for .co.uk)

Last year we launched the .uk toolkit to help you promote .uk domain names to your customers.

Following your feedback, we've updated and improved the toolkit to make it quicker and easier to use. You can now find a helpful guide and cheat sheets, as well as a new video, a range of digital display formats featuring our latest case studies Sweetie Pie and Trade Plumbing plus Multi-Year Registration Period banners (MYRP).

You can request the toolkit at .uk Brand Toolkit here - http://registrars.nominet.org.uk/marketing-tools-and-events/branding-toolkits

If you have any questions please contact the UK Brand Team: [email protected]

 

[Sam]

Yes I was shocked too talk about confusing everyone.

.uk brand toolkit .co.uk a great place to be soon to be .UK oh yes please register your .co.uk domains another 10 years. .

:thumbdown:

 

[max_rk]

Nominet will do everything they can get away with.

The big issue is direct uk, we ether stop it or try to make it better. So far I don’t see how it can be stopped. To make it better toolkit would be useful . no ?

 

[TinkyWinky]

Put it in the hands of a lawyer - misguidance? deceit? fraud? incompetence?

There will be something that sticks!

 

[ANY-Web]

...there's never been a better time to purchase a .co.uk domain name

Thanks, Tinky Winky and everybody for telling me that I am not alone in finding Nominet's current .co.uk branding campaign offensive.

Nominet's lack of "transparency, transparency, transparency" is evident here.
It is one thing for Nominet to refuse repeatedly to inform its existing 10m registrants about direct.uk (under the guise of data protection).
Quite another for Nominet not to even mention direct.uk in a banner ad campaign for new .co.uk customers.

Particularly this one could have legal consequences for Nominet at a later stage, when new .co.uk registrants find that they were missold ".co.uk" and had significant rebranding costs as a result:

The full range is here:
http://registrars.nominet.org.uk/marketing-tools-and-events/branding-toolkits

I am not a lawyer. Can anybody enlighten me if these ads are just morally wrong or actually legally wrong?

 

[Stephen]

Trading Standards office?

.......I am not a lawyer. Can anybody enlighten me if these ads are just morally wrong or actually legally wrong?

There cannot be any dispute it is morally wrong of Nominet to be acting in this way.

Nominet say it is only a consultation, but you only have to see how close it was in February to Nominet releasing .uk to know its not.

Still waiting for the board voting details to be released, so all can see exactly how close we came to having V1 .uk thrust upon us, but I have been advised it was very close indeed.

Rather than expensive legal advise, I would suggest going to Trading Standards as a registrar and explaining how Nominet's action is wrong and see if they will do anything about it.

In the past Trading Standards have been very useful standing up for the rights of consumers, were they are being mislead!

I'm out of the country on holiday at present, is there anybody who will take this up with the Trading Standards office?

 

[GreyWing]

Rather than expensive legal advise, I would suggest going to Trading Standards as a registrar and explaining how Nominet's action is wrong and see if they will do anything about it.

They don't tend to go for expensive advice mate, in fact we'd advise them to take speciliast advice but they won't listen. I think several times at the post AGM .uk conference they said that legal advice was their own in house advice. That legal advice came from someone who has a history of not telling the truth, got to be careful because of the court action of course...... Nope wait, he lied!

So at best they have legal advice from a) someone who made something up and b) probably doesn't know what he was talking about according the experts in those fields like the chap from the Independent who said the data protection excuse was crap.

We are in safe hands,

 

[Edwin]

and b) probably doesn't know what he was talking about according the experts in those fields like the chap from the Independent who said the data protection excuse was crap.

Just to clarify, that should read the lawyer from the Independent. He was giving a professional opinion rather than a layman's guess, even if he was blunt enough in his choice of words to say "that's crap".

 

[PaulGregory]

Is it not simply the case that these are (belatedly) updated to calculate from 2013 rather than 2012, because people asked for them?

To be fair "there has never been a better time" could now be read to mean "next year may be a much worse time for buying .co.uk domains".

When PhONEday came round, I don't think anyone (even people who got new phone numbers in the 12 months beforehand) could claim rebranding / reprinting costs - and those were contact details that actually changed. (And yes there were businesses with the STD in the name).

Given that .co.uk will continue to work should the worst happen, it's not really mis-selling. Mis-selling is not selling a thing when something "better" is definitely coming round the corner, it's selling a thing that is *never* going to be needed.

Further, the frames of the animated banner shown above do not actually suggest that a decade is more advisable than 1 year. (However they don't mention that you could probably renew in 2 years at the same price as today. A lot of people need renewals explaining to them and this doesn't help.)

Indeed, I can see how the banner could be seen as reminding businesses that they could get a short 1 year reg, which might be good for caution.

They are not morally or legally wrong. It's not like promoting Woolworth's vouchers when you know the company's going bump.

I'm not sure what Trading Standards can do. The banners are designed to be used by Registrars, so it would be a Registrar that you would complain about. If you are a Registrar that doesn't want to use the promotional material... don't use it. If you distrust the banner and won't buy a .co.uk - don't buy one. If you trusted the banner, bought a .co.uk for 10 years and now regret it, I don't see how these banners have any impact on the terms you agreed to or enhance your legal right to compensation. (What lawyer will help you chase £50?)

Don't get me wrong, I'm against Direct.uk on the grounds that it's too messy, too late and will just end up with confusion and a lot of businesses owning multiple variants. But the banners are not wrong, Direct.uk is. If the .co.uk banners work, the case for Direct.uk is diminished.

In short, the banners are a good argument for not doing Direct.uk, but the possibility of Direct.uk need not stop these banners.

Encouraging the .co.uk banners would seem more productive than challenging them.

.co.uk - a great place to be for the next decade.

 

[websaway]

Thanks, Tinky Winky and everybody for telling me that I am not alone in finding Nominet's current .co.uk branding campaign offensive.

Nominet's lack of "transparency, transparency, transparency" is evident here.
It is one thing for Nominet to refuse repeatedly to inform its existing 10m registrants about direct.uk (under the guise of data protection).
Quite another for Nominet not to even mention direct.uk in a banner ad campaign for new .co.uk customers.

Particularly this one could have legal consequences for Nominet at a later stage, when new .co.uk registrants find that they were missold ".co.uk" and had significant rebranding costs as a result:

The full range is here:
http://registrars.nominet.org.uk/marketing-tools-and-events/branding-toolkits

I am not a lawyer. Can anybody enlighten me if these ads are just morally wrong or actually legally wrong?

Promoting 10 year co.uk registrations is the most disturbing. ( it is a consultation but they have said they want to introduce the .uk )
They seem to have trapped themselves between a rock and a hard place and are ignoring the "moral stroke customer care interests" side of the issue in favour of maintaining income growth.

 

[GreyWing]

Promoting 10 year co.uk registrations is the most disturbing. ( it is a consultation but they have said they want to introduce the .uk )
They seem to have trapped themselves between a rock and a hard place and are ignoring the "moral stroke customer care interests" side of the issue in favour of maintaining income growth.

They do seem to have got themselves in a desperate situation. My own thinking is the fact that they will publish the consultations with give them a very clear way out and save face. However after attending the .uk meetings, they do contradict that way out by continuing to discuss the mechanisms for it rather than whether it is right or wrong to do it.

So I'm puzzled by it completely.

 

[Stephen]

Getting better!

.....They are not morally or legally wrong. It's not like promoting Woolworth's vouchers when you know the company's going bump.

......co.uk - a great place to be for the next decade.

Would your moral's have you promote .co.uk for 10 years renewals, when you might be offering a better. uk next year?

It is one thing to be passive and not mention on .uk at a greatplacetobe.co.uk but another to promote a product when you have other information, that may change the buyers decision.

At least its better than in V1 .uk when Nominet did run the same campaign, they had specifically excluded the last 1,000,000 registrations from having any rights to .uk, not this time so things must be getting better?

 

[Edwin]

Devil's advocate hat (relax, it's just for a moment!)

Isn't this like Apple promoting the iPhone 5 as the latest, greatest thing even though they know internally that the 5S (or whatever it will be called) is only a few months or weeks away?

If you look at any Apple store, they continue to promote the old model with no mention of the new model until the day it becomes available to walk in and buy (or sometimes a few days before if they're taking advance orders).

As such, how is Nominet's behaviour so different?

(When reading the above, imagine that somebody from outside our industry is asking the question i.e. what is the best way to defend against it?)

 

[websaway]

Devil's advocate hat (relax, it's just for a moment!)

Isn't this like Apple promoting the iPhone 5 as the latest, greatest thing even though they know internally that the 5S (or whatever it will be called) is only a few months or weeks away?

If you look at any Apple store, they continue to promote the old model with no mention of the new model until the day it becomes available to walk in and buy (or sometimes a few days before if they're taking advance orders).

As such, how is Nominet's behaviour so different?

(When reading the above, imagine that somebody from outside our industry is asking the question i.e. what is the best way to defend against it?)

It is similar, the difference being that Nominet are not Apple.

 

[GreyWing]

(Don't worry, know you are being Devils Advocate)

I'd disagree it's similar, if the Apple 6 started to interfere with the workings of the Apple 5 after they sold it then I'd agree it would be similar.

 

[Nigel]

I can't see the similarities - the public know new versions of mobile devices are churned out all the time.

I think its clear misselling to promote .co.uk without any small print warning of the ongoing consultation. Particularly as its a nominet led consultation with them making it quite clear that they favour the introduction of the shorter .uk. To offer .co.uk domains on a 10 year registration is a very foolish thing to do.

It seems that they have now removed the advice on agreatplacetobe.co.uk to buy domains in the aftermarket. As recent as 18 June they were advising visitors to buy in the aftermarket. See our discussions here http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-do...lving-uk-domain-name-space-15.html#post450747

Nominet were saying:

"If your first choice is already taken

You can use the WHOIS search tool to check the availability of all .uk domain names If someone has already registered the name you want, they might be willing to sell it to you. The WHOIS tool is located on the Nominet website."

I can't see it on the site anymore - can anyone else see it? If not it shows Nominet understand the danger of customers buying .co.uk domains. They still however cannot bring themselves to take down the agreatplacetobe.co.uk site.

 

[Edwin]

It seems that they have now removed the advice on agreatplacetobe.co.uk to buy domains in the aftermarket. As recent as 18 June they were advising visitors to buy in the aftermarket. See our discussions here http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/uk-do...lving-uk-domain-name-space-15.html#post450747

Nominet were saying:

"If your first choice is already taken

You can use the WHOIS search tool to check the availability of all .uk domain names If someone has already registered the name you want, they might be willing to sell it to you. The WHOIS tool is located on the Nominet website."

I can't see it on the site anymore - can anyone else see it? If not it shows Nominet understand the danger of customers buying .co.uk domains. They still however cannot bring themselves to take down the agreatplacetobe.co.uk site.

Point 10 on this page: http://www.agreatplacetobe.co.uk/get-started/whats-in-a-name/

 

[Nigel]

Point 10 on this page: http://www.agreatplacetobe.co.uk/get-started/whats-in-a-name/

Thanks

 

[Stephen]

Apple V Nominet

Devil's advocate hat (relax, it's just for a moment!)

Isn't this like Apple promoting the iPhone 5 as the latest, greatest thing even though they know internally that the 5S (or whatever it will be called) is only a few months or weeks away?

If you look at any Apple store, they continue to promote the old model with no mention of the new model until the day it becomes available to walk in and buy (or sometimes a few days before if they're taking advance orders).

As such, how is Nominet's behaviour so different?

(When reading the above, imagine that somebody from outside our industry is asking the question i.e. what is the best way to defend against it?)

There is a difference,you expect Apple to release V6 , V7 , V8 Ad infinitum and they don't hide the fact they even put a clue in the name that there will be a better new release...\and they are a commercial company

Nominet have not issued a new better product since its inception in 1996 (unless you count .me.uk) some 17 years ago! and would not expect them to undermine their own main product .co.uk (93% of revenue) as a "not-for-profit" organization.

I wonder if you didn't subscribe to Acorn and nom-announce list (simply being a registrar is not enough) then the chances of hearing about the .uk proposal V1 were nearly non-existent, how would have you felt if .uk got in under V1? (hypothetical devils advocate sort of question)

It is those people how will be making a decision about there business web strategy without the full facts or knowledge of .uk, that concerns me

I see a huge difference but everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

 

[Edwin]

I wonder if you didn't subscribe to Acorn and nom-announce list (simply being a registrar is not enough) then the chances of hearing about the .uk proposal V1 were nearly non-existent, how would have you felt if .uk got in under V1? (hypothetical devils advocate sort of question)

Impossible to answer because at best I would have had a handful of .co.uk domains in that situation, not 7,000. So hard to tell how I would have reacted, given that I would have (also) had to be doing something completely different (what? no idea) rather than dealing in domains.

In other words you can't have one thing (thousands of names) without the other (at least a marginal interest in keeping abreast of what Nominet are doing)