The great big .uk Rights of Registration thread!

[ian]

So the deadline has now passed for registering your .uk rights. Seems the large registrars took the opportunity to register as many of them as they can (to extend their profitibility), and brand protection companies like Mark Monitor and CSC Corp registered at the last minute.

The list has certainly thinned out, I believe from around 3 million to 1 million, so congratulations to Nominet, bumper bonuses this year no doubt.

They've changed their dates a little, they will now announce if you have met the criteria tomorrow, 26th June, with the final list (suspect because many registered .uk's are suspended pending validation) tomorrow too.

Testing has been fun, clear to see who has been preparing. Not seen much action from large registrars but they've probably been gifted with a catch solution and priority access

 

[davedevelopment]

Testing was a lot more fun a couple of weeks ago when I was getting all the names I wanted

Agree with the congratulations to nominet, they are the real winners here.

I'm looking forward to the firesale in a couple of weeks.

 

[timter51]

I'm looking forward to the firesale in a couple of weeks.

I fear .co.uk sales may take a hit for a while as people look at investing in the newly available premium .uks that are going to flood the market.

 

[ian]

I suspect .co.uk sales have already taken a hit!

 

[3gmedia]

Yes, some crazy times to come for .uk over the next couple of months.

 

[timter51]

I suspect .co.uk sales have already taken a hit!

I guess so, but the market being flooded with .uk over the coming weeks / months could it make it nigh on pointless to even list .co.uk on DL etc.

 

[stitchbob]

I'm holding out for the 1st October 2020 droplist - that should be fun.

 

[RobM]

I would bet that in the next 12 months there's a change in policy allowing registrars to keep domains on their tag that aren't renewed...to stop evil cyber squatters of course.

 

[stitchbob]

Or the big registrars changing their T&C's to say that if a free .uk domain isn't renewed before expiry they'll automatically take control of it before it drops.

 

[Sean]

I would bet that in the next 12 months there's a change in policy allowing registrars to keep domains on their tag that aren't renewed...

That's already allowed as long as it's in your T&C's

 

[Sean]

Can anyone explain why names like gifts.uk are suddenly suspended?

 

[jmcc]

So the deadline has now passed for registering your .uk rights. Seems the large registrars took the opportunity to register as many of them as they can (to extend their profitibility), and brand protection companies like Mark Monitor and CSC Corp registered at the last minute.

Probably a lot more brand protection registrations than that. Markmonitor and CSC are only some of the more prominent. The main brand protection regs tend to come from small businesses rather than trademark holders. That's the way it works with most ccTLDs. What makes them stand out is a kind of pairing with the registrant owning the .co.uk and the .com version of the name.

Testing has been fun, clear to see who has been preparing. Not seen much action from large registrars but they've probably been gifted with a catch solution and priority access

There did seem to be a few issues with resellers rather than registrars. Some small hosters outside the UK who are not registrars tend to outsource gTLD and ccTLD registration services. One of these services seemed to be stuck with 2018 rules on ROR .UK requirements. The .UK ccTLD is the second biggest ccTLD on Irish hosters after .IE and there are about 33K .co.uk regs on Irish hosters. Nominet's online service (allowing registrar changes) probably helped things but there might be a lot of would-be .UK registrants on these outsourced registrars who did not get their .UK.

Regards...jmcc

 

[ian]

Can anyone explain why names like gifts.uk are suddenly suspended?

Typically is happening when the .uk is registered with a different registrar to the .co.uk. Nominet suspend them pending a verification request they send out to the .co.uk owner.

 

[Sean]

Typically is happening when the .uk is registered with a different registrar to the .co.uk. Nominet suspend them pending a verification request they send out to the .co.uk owner.

By chance I was going through lists at 1am this morning - as you do! - and the rights hadn't been exercised on that name. It seems a little suspicious that between 1am and 6am a registrant has suddenly remembered to register the domain. I've just been chatting with someone that had this happen to them i.e. someone attempted to exercise rights fraudulently through a large registrar. Nominet contacted them and corrected the mistake.

 

[jmcc]

By chance I was going through lists at 1am this morning - as you do! - and the rights hadn't been exercised on that name. It seems a little suspicious that between 1am and 6am a registrant has suddenly remembered to register the domain. I've just been chatting with someone that had this happen to them i.e. someone attempted to exercise rights fraudulently through a large registrar. Nominet contacted them and corrected the mistake.

Looks unusual but there may be a lot of last minute registrations that were submitted right up until the cutoff. Nominet does seem to have handled this a lot better than Eurid did with its .EU fiasco.

Regards...jmcc

 

[stitchbob]

Can anyone explain why names like gifts.uk are suddenly suspended?

Perhaps a sneaky way to bypass the ROR limits and avoid any dispute with the rights holders? Register domains "on behalf of" rights holders on the 25th, then mark them not required on the 26th, since the rights holder didn't claim it and no longer has exclusive rights to it.

That way, the ROR droplist is already frozen, so it won't appear on there. Instead, it enters the standard dropcatch process so they can catch it without impacting their ROR quota. As a bonus, I don't believe "not required" domains appear on any droplists, so there won't be any competition for it.

I'm not 100% sure how the "not required" process works, but if that's the case, it's very cheeky.

 

[timter51]

What batch of domains drop on the testbed today, C to E is it? Nom have taken the FAQ down and I've forgotten...

 

[ian]

What batch of domains drop on the testbed today, C to E is it? Nom have taken the FAQ down and I've forgotten...

C-F today fella

 

[meslam123]

For sure .co.uk will take a hit in the secondary market, but the mean issue, will it be less desirable for end users for the coming months/years? after all end-user sales push a strong secondary market.

 

[RobM]

No sign of the main registrars on test again. Seems they don't need to know if their software is going to work...