Renewals campaign/consultation

[Whois-Search]

During the marketing workshop at the Nominet .uk conference Phil Kingsland announced a renewals campaign to encourage registrants to renew through their registrars.

It already seems to have started:

http://www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/news/2204115/laosed-dommain-names-bought

The thing I don't like about this is the way 'nasty dropcatchers' are being used to promote this. I would prefer Nominet did the "use it, don't lose it" campaign direct through registrars.

That 10 second graph presented to the PAB also annoyed me:
http://www.nic.uk/digitalAssets/26090_Nov_07_domain_re_registration.pdf

The DAC came out in 2004 so we all know why domains are being registered in under 10 seconds. Nominet allows people to use the DAC, if they don't want people to use it then turn it off.....don't instead try and push through changes with a graph. Dropcatchers will still use the DAC under a waiting list to make drop lists.

There is also a consultation on renewals:

http://www.nic.uk/policy/consultations/renewalsreview/reviewsurvey/

Notice at the bottom "Do not publish my response" tick box.... i've not seen that before.

Is this to stop the 'dropcatchers' submitting in numbers and then adding up the for and against? Openness and transparency?

Anyway....

My feelings on this is that the Renewals Campaign should be carried out through registrars with Nominet providing them with material to send to registrants. Yes registrars should be able to indicate that their customer does not wish to renew - maybe they should even be allowed to transfer the name and auction them off. They should also be able to cancel a renewal as this causes problems when registrants don't pay up.

I would change the suspended period to be inline with RGP of .com http://www.snapnames.com/deleteprocess.html

Maybe even this Automaton AUP policy could be applied to the DAC also:

the combined number of REQUEST and QUERY operations attempted on names that already exist must not exceed 1,000 in any 24 hour period.

http://www.nic.uk/registrars/systems/auto/aup/

Waiting lists won't solve the problem they will just cause more problems.

 

[tifosi]

I only scanned the report. I'll look at the stats closely later. It was interesting to see from the graphs that 44%+ of the uk domains were registered in the last 2 years.

The figures for 2002 and below showed a very small proportion of domains registered there compared to later.

As far as nasty dropcatchers & domain warehousers go. It's as sound a business model as owning a portfolio of buy-to-let houses. Yes I know all the brick and mortal analogies. Nom-steer had the circular arguments forever, but the analogy is sound. They're investments.

The people who have been in the industry know that the time now is to move away from this into sounder models of monetisation, excluding parking and 1page sites. It's a long-term strategy. There's also a growing trend in like-for-like transfers between portfolios for purposes of niche area growth and niche area dvelopment. This I see growing. As well as the move of the big portfolio purchasers across the pond.

Dropcatching is slowing off. There's still a market, but the number and quality of domains worth investing in that are being released has plummeted. Whether from more positive renewals, a better general awareness of domains, or more likely that because of the numbers above, there is a general reduction on actual 'value' domains due to be released or wih the potential to be released.

Its a little to late in the day for Nominet to start considering wholesale changes. The stage is set, and act1 has long gone. Time for the encore.

Stephen

 

[bb99]

Notice at the bottom "Do not publish my response" tick box.... i've not seen that before.

Is this to stop the 'dropcatchers' submitting in numbers and then adding up the for and against? Openness and transparency?

Last year I asked whether I could submit an anonymous response to a consultation and I was told:

Unfortunately we are unable to accept anonymous
responses to the consultation as it is a public document. It is
useful for us when analysing the responses to be able to identify
viewpoints from our different stakeholders for example our members,
tag holders and registrants.

While it may not be cast in stone, this suggests there has been a change in policy... So, Andrew, as a PAB member, no doubt you rubberstamped this

 

[Whois-Search]

While it may not be cast in stone, this suggests there has been a change in policy... So, Andrew, as a PAB member, no doubt you rubberstamped this

As you will know it's not been on the agenda and the PAB only 'recommends' things to the board to rubberstamp

I noticed the change in publishing consultation responses during the Nom-steer vs web-based forum consultation:

Others commented that no responses were visible on the website consultation page. E.m.i.l.y. T.a.y.l.o.r. agreed to investigate this. http://www.nic.uk/digitalAssets/22856_PAB52minutes_Sept_07.pdf

Which still haven't been published: http://www.nic.uk/policy/consultations/forum/

IMO the change has come about due to things like this:

http://www.drsconsultation.co.uk/drs-findings.pdf

http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/nomin...rs-default-transfer-consultation-results.html

I also agree with Stephen and his excellent post.

 

[fred]

Maybe even this Automaton AUP policy could be applied to the DAC also:

the combined number of REQUEST and QUERY operations attempted on names that already exist must not exceed 1,000 in any 24 hour period.

http://www.nic.uk/registrars/systems/auto/aup/

I may not be understanding what you mean by that, but if you mean that use of the DAC should only be for domains on your own tag, then doesn't that defeat the object of having a Domain Availability Checker in the first place? I don't need to check if domains on my tag are available as I already know they are not!

 

[retired_member9]

Maybe even this Automaton AUP policy could be applied to the DAC also:

http://www.nic.uk/registrars/systems/auto/aup/

It was mentioned many times by Nominet that DAC was implemented not to assist drop-catchers, but rather large registrars doing a lots of look-up requests daily.

 

[Whois-Search]

I may not be understanding what you mean by that, but if you mean that use of the DAC should only be for domains on your own tag, then doesn't that defeat the object of having a Domain Availability Checker in the first place? I don't need to check if domains on my tag are available as I already know they are not!

What I mean is .... some kind of limit on how many times you can check the same domain name. So if you check fred.co.uk 1000 times in 24 hours you get blocked for 24 hours.

 

[olebean]

It was mentioned many times by Nominet that DAC was implemented not to assist drop-catchers, but rather large registrars doing a lots of look-up requests daily.

or reduce costs...

 

[fred]

What I mean is .... some kind of limit on how many times you can check the same domain name. So if you check fred.co.uk 1000 times in 24 hours you get blocked for 24 hours.

ah, right!

Interesting idea, but one issue with that would be that I could go to 123-reg and check the same domain 1000 times and get them blocked - losing the business as no one else could check/reg any domains.

 

[Craig]

The only way to limit the DAC in this way (in my eyes) would be limiting the number of queries regarding a specific domain to a number - such as 1,000 per 24 hours..

Edit.. Took too long to reply... Damn people on the phone

 

[Craig]

ah, right!

Interesting idea, but one issue with that would be that I could go to 123-reg and check the same domain 1000 times and get them blocked - losing the business as no one else could check/reg any domains.

On our domain registration system we (already) limit the number of lookups that a customer can do on a daily basis and also limit the number of times a specific domain can be looked up - to prevent abuse from your types Fred