.UK Announced

[websaway]

Those in the "yes to direct.uk camp" must realise that the more people they ask, the more "no" is going to be dominant. Imagine asking the owners of all 10,000,000 existing .co.uk domains for example (assuming that the repercussions of direct.uk are explained clearly and simply enough).

More consultation means more chances for Nominet to get hauled up in Parliament, exposed in the mass media, etc. even while collecting more and more negative responses to the whole concept.

I could be wrong (we're all guessing here I believe) but I feel that "more consultation needed" is the least likely of all outcomes.

The folks at Nominet can perhaps be accused of many things: greed, short-sightedness, a willingness to disregard the prevailing public opinion, etc. But stupidity? I don't think so... and it would be a genuinely stupid move to re-open the consultation process and invite another round of public pillorying.

When you consider this whole fiasco I can't see how you rule out the stupid bit.
After all the lack of other qualities you allude to amount to stupidity

 

[Nigel]

It's interesting when you look at the FOI release from August 2012. Nominet are in discussion with a Government department - obviously anxious to get them on board. Of course the Government dep't are going to like the idea of a more secure domain space - but there is no mention in that email that Nominet were proposing to use the shorter .uk domain. I wonder when Nominet first broke the news to Government officials that they proposed offering the new secure service on the shorter .uk version - thus relegating .co.uk, .org.uk and .ac.uk etc?

I think it is likely that the Information Commissioner would have been one of the 'key stakeholders' worthy of being copied the draft document back in August. Nominet won't tell us who the 'key stakeholders' were but we all owe the Information Commissioner a great deal of gratitude. Whilst Nominet, never mentioned the detrimental effect the new domain could have on existing domains - either in the consultation process or document or in any of the meetings, the ICO could see beyond Nominet's words and actions and said:

'We assume that Nominet will be planning to ensure that the introduction of direct.uk domains does not have a detrimental effect on the reputation of existing domains.'

http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/cons...onsultation_on_a_new_domain_name_service.ashx

 

[ANY-Web]

The folks at Nominet can perhaps be accused of many things: greed, short-sightedness, a willingness to disregard the prevailing public opinion, etc. But stupidity? I don't think so... and it would be a genuinely stupid move to re-open the consultation process and invite another round of public pillorying.

Edwin - re-opening the consultation process is the most likely result in my view. Nominet is likely to follow the model of the New Zealand .nz consultation period, which started on 30th May 2012 and closed on 27th September 2012.
This is around 4 months ahead of Nominet's timetable for .UK and is now going into a phase of further research and crucially a second round of consultation in 2013:
http://dnc.org.nz/second_level_proposal_c1_update?m=309
We should expect Nominet to consult further and taking a while to make a considered decision.

 

[Stephen]

Edwin - re-opening the consultation process is the most likely result in my view. Nominet is likely to follow the model of the New Zealand .nz consultation period, which started on 30th May 2012 and closed on 27th September 2012.
This is around 4 months ahead of Nominet's timetable for .UK and is now going into a phase of further research and crucially a second round of consultation in 2013:
http://dnc.org.nz/second_level_proposal_c1_update?m=309
We should expect Nominet to consult further and taking a while to make a considered decision.

Before that there will be an Nominet AGM which should be part of the Boards thinking!

 

[foz]

Edwin - re-opening the consultation process is the most likely result in my view. Nominet is likely to follow the model of the New Zealand .nz consultation period, which started on 30th May 2012 and closed on 27th September 2012.
This is around 4 months ahead of Nominet's timetable for .UK and is now going into a phase of further research and crucially a second round of consultation in 2013:
http://dnc.org.nz/second_level_proposal_c1_update?m=309
We should expect Nominet to consult further and taking a while to make a considered decision.

I think the DNC are waiting for Nominet to blink before it discusses .nz further.

 

[Nigel]

Before that there will be an Nominet AGM which should be part of the Boards thinking!

And they'll also have to release registration numbers soon - which will, I imagine, show that they are now in decline (suspended domains from a renewal date of 1st Oct 2012 will have started dropping from 1st week of January)

 

[websaway]

Edwin - re-opening the consultation process is the most likely result in my view. Nominet is likely to follow the model of the New Zealand .nz consultation period, which started on 30th May 2012 and closed on 27th September 2012.
This is around 4 months ahead of Nominet's timetable for .UK and is now going into a phase of further research and crucially a second round of consultation in 2013:
http://dnc.org.nz/second_level_proposal_c1_update?m=309
We should expect Nominet to consult further and taking a while to make a considered decision.

New Zealand Population 4 million. A lot less than the west midlands.

 

[Stephen]

Growth?

And they'll also have to release registration numbers soon - which will, I imagine, show that they are now in decline (suspended domains from a renewal date of 1st Oct 2012 will have started dropping from 1st week of January)

Totally agree, especially Piers White how made a massive play for the growth of Uk was a sign of its success and the 9%+ growth rate and year on year growth, 2nd ctld biggest in the world etc...

See the April 2012 (not 1 year ago) Press release for growing .co.uk with the new campaign of "a Great place to be"

http://www.nominet.org.uk/news/press-releases/nominet-targets-offline-businesses-uk-brand-push

The last line :

The campaign is targeted with increasing the annual growth rate of the .uk register - currently at 9.3%.

So yes, Nominet have not succeded in their stated aim by a long way.

 

[foz]

New Zealand Population 4 million. A lot less than the west midlands.

What has population got to do with it? The idea of opening up the second level still disrupts the third level holders.

 

[markb]

My guess is that they're going ahead with direct.uk and will release the statement after close of business to give people time to calm down and save staff from the shit storm that will blow up.

People wouldnt calm down overight. Going ahead would be a massive undertaking and lots of people will not be happy.

 

[Systreg]

My guess is that they're going ahead with direct.uk and will release the statement after close of business to give people time to calm down and save staff from the shit storm that will blow up.

I also think it'll be after 5:00pm when they announce it, then they'll all be down the pub or off home, I'm surprised they didn't work it so that the announcement was on a Friday, then they could have the whole weekend for people to calm down, not that anyone will be calming down if they go ahead with it.

 

[websaway]

What has population got to do with it? The idea of opening up the second level still disrupts the third level holders.

Well on the assumption that registrations are proportionate it involves changes to a lot less registrants and in this case less is easier.
Basically no comparison ( to New Zealand ) in actually making it happen.

 

[StoneRoses]

Does anyone here think them going ahead and ensuring .co.uk holders get the .uk of their name is a realistic option? Or are the only options that

A-Yes,it will go ahead as planned with tm holders getting first dibs

B-No the idea has been scrapped

 

[websaway]

Does anyone here think them going ahead and ensuring .co.uk holders get the .uk of their name is a realistic option? Or are the only options that

A-Yes,it will go ahead as planned with tm holders getting first dibs

B-No the idea has been scrapped

I go back to my old argument. They have already sold the uk business namespace in the form of co.uk and they have to get over that.

 

[AssetDomains]

No in its current form so does this mean the markets going to remain in limbo for longer

http://www.nominet.org.uk/news/latest/update-directuk

 

[GreyWing]

Stability, awesome..... I like to invest on fault line, it's so much fun.

 

[cm1975]

No in its current form so does this mean the markets going to remain in limbo for longer

It would seem so, as long as the spectre of the .uk domain hanging over it.

Seems like they have met resistance, but don't want to lose face and will push forward with as much of it as possible. More consultation???

 

[websaway]

I would like to personally thank the people on here who have tirelessly championed this cause over the last few months.
Good luck to you in the future.

 

[boxfish]

Does this not make it sound like "Yes, but not yet", rather than "No"

Over the coming months, this work will explore:

A revised phased release mechanism based largely on the prior registrations of domains in existing third levels within .uk and in which contention between different applicants for the same domain name should be reduced or eliminated.

 

[Edwin]

Does this not make it sound like "Yes, but not yet", rather than "No"

Only if you ignore the immediately preceding paragraph, which states: "As a result, we are going to explore whether it is possible to present a revised proposal that meets the principles of increasing trust and security and maintaining the relevance of the .uk proposition in a changing landscape."

It looks more like they don't want to be left with egg on their faces with a flat rejection of the whole idea, so they will tinker and fiddle and finally conclude that either A) it's unworkable or B) the .uk should be handed wholesale to the .co.uk owner (since they're marketing .uk and .co.uk as being "for business") or C) they go for my "oldest registrant wins" approach.

No matter what, it looks like the land grab by TM holders at the detriment of anyone else is consigned, rightly, to the dustbin of history.