.UK Announced

[Nigel]

Agree with you there websaway.

Thanks for raising the issue of .wales Stephen. What on earth are nominet doing subsidising this project? It will always be a drain on resources. How much money have they already allocated to this project? It just shows what is going on behind closed doors. If the welsh people really want .wales it should have been left for a Welsh based organisation or the Welsh assembly to have taken control of this. I cannot see why nominet should get involved in this. Is this another reason why they want to introduce direct.uk and charge £20 a domain?

 

[Stephen]

.london

Another ICANN gTLD on the way .LONDON for London,UK which muddies the water for .uk.

http://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus/applicationdetails/1158

It was strange to see a USA company Minds and Machines as the
registrar for this .LONDON UK new tld rather than Nominet?

.LONDON is backed by www.londonandpartners.com which is backed by the Mayor and the City of London.

My best guess is 25,000 domain names with keyword "London" in UK namespace.
The number of UK domains with London registrant addresses must be over 1 million?

Is this all adding to the panic at Nominet?

With all this mess at .uk and .co.uk, it may be an appealing option for London businesses to move over in all the confusion.

 

[DarrenTSO]

If I recall correctly, Nominet participated in the tender process for .london with London and Partners, but did not get the go ahead and the other company was chosen instead.

.london has the potential to be massive. The greater London area comprises a population of 10 million people, supports a massive amount of business and tourism so I could actually see .london being one of the more popular new TLDs.

 

[Stephen]

.london.uk ?

....london has the potential to be massive. The greater London area comprises a population of 10 million people, supports a massive amount of business and tourism so I could actually see .london being one of the more popular new TLDs.

Would it be immoral for Nominet to consider launching a 2nd level tld .london.uk ?

 

[Paullas]

Would it be immoral for Nominet to consider launching a 2nd level tld .london.uk ?

The way they have handled .uk, i wouldnt put it past them tbh.

 

[websaway]

Would it be immoral for Nominet to consider launching a 2nd level tld .london.uk ?

Is that something that's behind their thinking, or would they need a trademark or did I recall seeing that they would not release anything that is identicle to a any tld.

 

[Nigel]

new tlds

Maybe nominet are in a bit of a panic about the new extensions. But they're making things much worse by creating confusion in the .uk space. They also should have left .wales alone as the last thing they should want to do is pay for, subsidise, and promote, a new tld themselves.

Nominet's two main extensions of .co.uk and .org.uk have a massive advantage over these new tlds. They have over 15 years of use and trust built up in them and then you have perhaps the most important factor for any consumer - COST. Nominet created a domain that was one of the most economical in the world. As low as £2.50 per annum for a .co.uk. The new tlds can never compete with that cost. So what do they do? Announce a consultation on direct.uk and a domain costing £20 per annum. The new tlds might be able to compete with that price - and nominet are caught in a trap of their own making.

 

[foz]

Would it be immoral for Nominet to consider launching a 2nd level tld .london.uk ?

.kiwi had strong opinions against .kiwi.nz but it still went ahead.

http://dnc.org.nz/content/kiwi.nz_dot_kiwi_ltd.html
http://dnc.org.nz/story/application-new-2ld-kiwinz?m=309

I don't see anything wrong with Nominet rolling out various .keyword.uk options. Certainly less disruptive than .uk

 

[Murray]

.kiwi had strong opinions against .kiwi.nz but it still went ahead.

http://dnc.org.nz/content/kiwi.nz_dot_kiwi_ltd.html
http://dnc.org.nz/story/application-new-2ld-kiwinz?m=309

I don't see anything wrong with Nominet rolling out various .keyword.uk options. Certainly less disruptive than .uk

Things like

ldn.uk
liv.uk
manc.uk
bham.uk

for major cities wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Stephen]

UK counties?

Things like

ldn.uk
liv.uk
manc.uk
bham.uk​

for major cities wouldn't be so bad.

What about UK counties .hants.uk etc. and districts like .wessex.uk ?

All new 2nd level UK tld's not likely if introduce .uk, it is such a pity there is not a real debate
at Nominet about the many solutions that are possible to move the UK namespace forward.

 

[philiporchard]

I think it would get extremely confusing if businesses were allowed to register some domains at the second level and Nominet didn't release them all and sold some extensions at the 3rd level based on counties...

For example, you would expect Avon to be able to register Avon.uk (assuming they had a trademark). You couldn't have Nominet bringing in a new 3rd level for counties... Imagine someone registering www.shop.avon.uk (you'd expect it to be associated with the Avon company).

 

[monaghan]

Things like

ldn.uk
liv.uk
manc.uk
bham.uk

for major cities wouldn't be so bad.

Seems far more of a logical move to me rather than simply closing down future expansion capabilities. From a purely financial point of view, once the good names are sold in .uk form there's no future growth unless Nominet get another tld to play with, by keeping the 2nd level flexible there's virtually no limit to growth and geo-targeting being the in thing domains by category and / or location has to be the way to go doesn't it? search.bristol.uk or hotel.london.uk anyone?

 

[Stephen]

No replacement auctions please!

......So I sent it individually to each Nominet Board member (well, all but 2 - I've asked Leanne to pass it on to them with a note that the others have already received their copy). Whether they actually read any of it is another matter, but at least I know the Board will have seen it.

Edwin’s brillant document:
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/ukpositionpaper.pdf

is undoubtedly a pivotal and important document in the battle not to have Nominet go ahead with its current proposal.

Without this document it would have been seen as a ranting from a few vested interest domain portfolio owners.
The facts contained in the document have changed the debate.

However its suggestion for “Proposal for the Equitable Allocation of .uk Domains Names” I believe
may encourage Nominet to believe they have a mandate to simply tweak the auction process and
have the backing of the facts as Edwin has presented them.

I would like to express that I do not believe that to be the case.

There are many factors to take into account that leads me to the conclusion that .uk should be paired ownership to .co.uk rather than a complex auction process.

1. Nominet have stated .uk is for business and .co.uk has been sold as the UK prime domain name for business for 16 years.
2. The other tld precedents in the report were all years ago when the internet was a different place.
3. The numbers involved in the established UK namespace are huge at 10 million compared to the small numbers involved in the other country changes.
4. The registration rules in certain countries like Japan meant the restrictions on .co.jp create a different set of problems to solve.
5. There is a clear policy and statements on what .org.uk and .me.uk should be used for and that is not business.
6. 95%+ of .uk would be owned by .co.uk owners in the auction scenario and a lot of effort and money for no gain would be obtained.
7. If they were not paired ownership you would have domains being dropped so carrying on problems for years to come.
8. The .uk and .co.uk are too similar in the mind of the consumer to have as different ownership.
9. The owners of .co.uk would not all be aware of the auctions and so by default go to .org.uk owners that were aware.
10. Make it possible to move from .co.uk to .uk when it suited the business rather than force them to rebrand now.

From recent Guardian article by Nominet:

It would not be practical to offer every existing .uk registrant the direct.uk equivalent as 470,000 domains in the .uk registry are not unique. For example, shop.co.uk and shop.org.uk are already registered to two different registrants.

Nominet have used the figure of 470,000 not unique domains.

This is a raw number, unfortunately Nominet will not allow accurate numbers be obtained but I will try to show how that is not the real number of problems.

470,000 / 2 to get from number of domains to number of unique domains = 235,000

This number would be reduced further when take account to multiple names in .me.uk and .org.uk
So reduce to 200,000

About 30% are the same owner so there would not be a problem with them.
Down to 140,000

About 25% of the .org.uk and .me.uk domains do not have a DNS server named
Down to 105,000

About 20% of those DNS records do not resolve
Down to 84,000

About 5% of .org.uk are in suspension
Down to 79,800

About 33% of those .org.uk would prefer to stay with .org.uk as it describes what they do (big guess)
Down to 53,466

About 25% of those .org.uk domains do not have a website as do the equivalent .co.uk domains
Down to 40,100

Still a large number at 40,100 but not a scary as 470,000.
Have not made adjustments for older .co.uk's or .co.uk's with trademarks etc which would bring the number down further.

Nominet used the example of shop.co.uk (reg before 1996) and shop.org.uk (reg 2003),
please look at the websites and you decide who should get the .uk?
or should shop.uk go to auction and possibly shop.co.uk not be aware of the auction and loose it to the .org.uk owner?
Strange how a UK trademark was applied for on shop on 1st October 2012 (although not acceptable under current rules - maybe later?)

I would like to see a list produced as Edwin did for who will not get the domain because of trademark issues prepared for genuine cases that the .org.uk owner would be disadvantaged.

I would propose more mediation as Nominet themselves have proposed in the .wales proposal, where the .org.uk or .me.uk requires the .uk.

If you agree with any of the above I suggest you update your feedback to Nominet on .uk
or else face having a tweaked set of new auctions to deal with,
with no further chance to change it.

 

[markb]

All the current uk domain extensions have defined uses, i.e. .co.uk for businesses, org.uk for organisations including charities, .me.uk for personal websites etc.....

Nominet have stated that the direct.uk domains will be a new product altogether but at the same time stating that they will be for businesses as they will have better security. Therefore this means that the direct.uk domains are not a new product and are a direct replacement for the .co.uk domains.

This means that all existing .co.uk domain owners NEED to buy the corresponding direct.uk domains otherwise they WILL end up with someone else either:

1. squatting on the domain and trying to earn money by confused customers going the .uk domain instead of the .co.uk.
2. Someone else buying the corresponding direct.uk domain and then trying to sell it to them at a later date for a very high price.
3. Someone else buying the corresponding direct.uk domain and creating a similar website on a confusingly similar domain and therefore causing confusion which will most likely end up in a legal battle with the two people.


In the very best case, where the .co.uk owner manages to buy the corresponding .uk domain via auction, it will end up costing them a lot of money, only for them just to redirect the domain to their co.uk domain so it will end up never being used so the security benefits will never be utilised.

Nominet mentioned that it would make available more domains for people to register. This is not the case, all .uk domains will be bought by the trademark holders and the people who own the corresponding .co.uk, .org.uk and me.uk domains etc... The only .uk domains left available to register are the obscure long names that are still available to register in the existing .uk extensions.

Therefore the direct.uk domains are going to be useless and have a negative impact on UK businesses and confuse customers. There will be no benefits to anyone.

It doesnt take a genius to work this out, so the nominet board members must all know what the outcome will be of the direct.uk launch.

Mark

 

[markb]

Can we get the nominet board members to tell us what they think the benefits of the direct.uk launch will be?, or are they still going with the original benefits which we all know are not true.

 

[Nigel]

All the current uk domain extensions have defined uses, i.e. .co.uk for businesses, org.uk for organisations including charities, .me.uk for personal websites etc.....

Nominet have stated that the direct.uk domains will be a new product altogether but at the same time stating that they will be for businesses as they will have better security. Therefore this means that the direct.uk domains are not a new product and are a direct replacement for the .co.uk domains.

This means that all existing .co.uk domain owners NEED to buy the corresponding direct.uk domains otherwise they WILL end up with someone else either:

1. squatting on the domain and trying to earn money by confused customers going the .uk domain instead of the .co.uk.
2. Someone else buying the corresponding direct.uk domain and then trying to sell it to them at a later date for a very high price.
3. Someone else buying the corresponding direct.uk domain and creating a similar website on a confusingly similar domain and therefore causing confusion which will most likely end up in a legal battle with the two people.


In the very best case, where the .co.uk owner manages to buy the corresponding .uk domain via auction, it will end up costing them a lot of money, only for them just to redirect the domain to their co.uk domain so it will end up never being used so the security benefits will never be utilised.

Nominet mentioned that it would make available more domains for people to register. This is not the case, all .uk domains will be bought by the trademark holders and the people who own the corresponding .co.uk, .org.uk and me.uk domains etc... The only .uk domains left available to register are the obscure long names that are still available to register in the existing .uk extensions.

Therefore the direct.uk domains are going to be useless and have a negative impact on UK businesses and confuse customers. There will be no benefits to anyone.

It doesnt take a genius to work this out, so the nominet board members must all know what the outcome will be of the direct.uk launch.

Mark

Great post Mark - Hit the nail on the head there. Confusion and Cost will be the dominant feature if direct.uk gets the go-ahead. Confusion - because there will be two very similar sounding business domains in the .uk domainspace and Cost because uk businesses will have to foot the bill in regging two domains instead of one, costs of auction, and loss of traffic and prestige if you can't get the .uk equivalent. So who's the winner in all this? Not hard to see - Nominet and their executives and legal team who will, no doubt, be milking this cash cow in terms of increased wages, bonuses and pensions. But there may be repercussions in years to come - particularly over their refusal to send any notice of this greedy plan to existing .co.uk domain owners.

 

[getmein]

I feel if they had genuinely wanted to contact a large number of registrants, despite the advice they've taken on the data protection act, they could have tried to do so through their largest registrars.

I'm sure that a huge number of registrants receive the 123reg newsletter and presumably other registrars send out similar communications. Of course the largest registrars could have refused, but did they even ask the question?

 

[Nigel]

Good point Getmein. I cannot believe that the data protection act would overide their responsibility to inform registrants of an important change that will directly affect their useage and enjoyment of their domain. Do you know that they are definitely giving this as an excuse? Have they put this in writing anywhere? or was it just given verbally at one of the meetings. Was anyone at any meeting where this excuse was given and can we have the name of the Nominet employee that offered up this excuse. I'm still waiting to hear from Eleanor Bradley on this and I'm not going to let it drop til they put something in writing.

 

[monaghan]

Given that by registering a .uk domain you enter into a 3 way contract with both Nominet and your registrar AND that it is a requirement to provide and maintain accurate contact details to Nominet (that can cost you your domain if you don't) and Nominet send end customers emails for renewal & suspension, I really do fail to see how if Nominet sent an email asking them to complete an optional short survey would be in breach of data protection. I can see that outsourcing the email may fail DP, but doing it themselves surely fits the "Uses made of the information" at http://www.nominet.org.uk/privacy-policy

 

[anthony]

I cannot believe that the data protection act would overide their responsibility to inform registrants of an important change that will directly affect their useage and enjoyment of their domain...

I'm sorry, but I think on this point Nominet are right. The contact details they hold are not intended to be used for anything other than the domains to which they relate, and certainly not for what would effectively be marketing purposes.