.UK Announced

[martin-s]

It's almost word for word the response I've had from Rory on the policy executive today.

 

[markb]

Lets hope they don't decide to go ahead with direct.uk , it will put confidence back in to the existing uk domain extensions nominet and everyone else has promoted and grown to know over the years.

The direct.uk proposal has just put a great big question mark over the whole uk namespace and just caused confusion and distrust.

I just hope this can all be resolved.

 

[addz123]

It's interesting looking at the differences between how ICANN decided to release a new range of GTLDs (18 month consultation including dozens of parties, commissions, governments and stakeholders) and how Nominet is doing it with .uk with a 3 month consultation than closed-door boardroom decision.

From ICANN's website: http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer-service/faqs/faqs-en

7.1 How are new gTLDs created?

The decision to establish the New gTLD Program followed a detailed and lengthy consultation process with all constituencies of the global Internet community. Representatives from a wide variety of stakeholders—governments, individuals, civil society, business and intellectual property constituencies, and the technology community—were engaged in discussions for more than 18 months. In October 2007, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO)—one of the groups that coordinates global Internet policy at ICANN—completed its policy development work on new gTLDs and approved a set of recommendations. Contributing to this policy work were ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) and Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC). The ICANN Board of Directors adopted the policy in June 2008. A thorough brief to the policy process can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/.

 

[Stephen]

Wales?

It's interesting looking at the differences between how ICANN decided to release a new range of GTLDs (18 month consultation including dozens of parties, commissions, governments and stakeholders) and how Nominet is doing it with .uk with a 3 month consultation than closed-door boardroom decision.

From ICANN's website: http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/customer-service/faqs/faqs-en

How can Nominet succeed in getting .wales?

When the FAQ's in the link state:

2.13 Can I apply for country name under the New gTLD Program?

Applications for strings that are country or territory names will not be approved, as they are not available under the New gTLD Program.

I still dont understand why Nominet didnt apply for .LONDON, .NIRL, .ENG and .SCOT if they were being defensive and the rule above didn't apply to them?

 

[Edwin]

I have just posted the below as a comment to the Guardian article:

(Preamble: since Nominet have stated they will not be publishing minutes for each of their face to face consultation meetings, contenting themselves with a single overall summary to be published at an unspecified date - this despite having official note-takers present at each one - it is essential to ensure that certain facts go on public record.)

Nominet has been made aware by a number of parties on multiple occasions that there are real, immediate consequences to the consultation process itself, regardless of its eventual outcome.

The uncetainty and confusion introduced into the UK namespace by Nominet's proposal have meant that:

1) Venture capital firms have pulled out of funding rounds abruptly, citing doubts about obtaining the .uk domains necessary to protect their .co.uk investments.

2) Business funding has dried up from certain sources pending the outcome of the consultation.

3) Development plans have been cancelled or put on hold. Staff have not been hired, or have had to be released.

4) Domain acquisitions have tailed off, impacting the business of specialist domain investment firms.

5) Domain renewal rates have dropped, as businesses no longer dare to incur the costs of keeping marginal domains stockpiled for future projects.

6) Companies have been forced to buy in legal and business expertise to ascertain their exposure to the .uk proposal as it stands, and to formulate a strategy for going forward.

7) Business representatives have given up substantial time (in many cases devoting several days to the process) and have spent money on travel, hotels and expenses in order to be present at face to face meetings with Nominet and make their concerns heard. (These are the same meetings Nominet subsequently announced it would not be publishing any minutes of.)

8) Trust in .co.uk has been weakened, impacting each of the 3,000,000+ businesses that have established their online identities on that extension.

Each of the above represents actual damage to UK business interests, and a drag on the UK economy at a time that it is already extremely fragile.

Nominet is fully aware of the above, yet persists with pushing forward with its consultation as if it is taking place in a vacuum. It has also refused to acknowledge any of the above issues in any public forum.

 

[monaghan]

I thought today's Dilbert was appropriate to the feelings expressed by many.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-12-19

 

[markb]

I thought today's Dilbert was appropriate to the feelings expressed by many.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-12-19

Thats very appropriate. We'll have to wait and see in February after their board meeting to see if they have actually listened to anyone they have asked or not.

 

[murph]

Just read the Nom reaction on Guardian... Do get the feeling this is a PR disaster! Edwin is highly commendable for all his efforts too.

 

[Lovekraft]

I'm glad i took the time to fill out the consultation form, i still think if anyone hasn't that they should do so, to continue to let Nominet know your feelings.

 

[Sound]

why don't people with parked domains or domains pointing to their portfolio pages redirect them from now until the 7th of January to one of the websites outlining the changes to the uk domain space.

 

[websaway]

I have just posted the below as a comment to the Guardian article:

Yes another great article, good stuff.

 

[Alien]

For anyone who wants a copy of their submitted survey, contact [email protected] to request they send you a copy of your responses.

I did this in October and they kindly assisted and forwarded me a .pdf copy.

 

[Edwin]

Yes another great article, good stuff.

Thanks for the kind words. All I can really do is keep chipping away (at least I know I have the "facts" on my side) and hopefully catch the eye of somebody able to disseminate the issue more widely. That's probably all we can all hope for at this point.

 

[Edwin]

Incidentally, I just sent the following to the directATnominet.org.uk email address that is the main contact for the consultation process:

Please ensure that ALL the following get included in my submission to the .uk consultation process verbatim without delay alongside the electronic form I filled in previously:

1) This email

2) The content of
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/pros-and-cons.html
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/trademarks.html
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/ukpositionpaper.pdf
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/alexatop500.pdf
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/tmroundup.pdf
http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/pros-and-cons.pdf

3) My articles in the following media:
http://www.affiliates4u.com/news/2012/11/nominets-uk-domain-name-fiasco/
http://www.webmastering.co.uk/domain-names/introduction-of-uk-dont-do-it/
http://www.elliotsblog.com/guest-post-the-introduction-of-uk-risks-damaging-the-uk-economy-9754
http://www.webmastering.co.uk/domain-names/co-uk-uks-first-giga-brand/

4) ALL my comments to the following article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-net...2012/dec/17/value-secure-uk-namespace-nominet

Please also ensure that copies of ALL the above are delivered directly to each individual Nominet Board member, and provide positive confirmation that this has been carried out. For the absence of doubt, this means that each one of the Nominet Board will have seen all
the above referenced documents.

Many thanks for your assistance.

Edwin Hayward
Director, Memorable Domains Ltd
Nominet Member: 16902975
Nominet Tag: MEMORABLE

If anyone else has additional material beyond what they've included on the online form itself, perhaps it's worth sending a similar email?

 

[Stephen]

Get it in writing..

Incidentally, I just sent the following to the directATnominet.org.uk email address that is the main contact for the consultation process:
If anyone else has additional material beyond what they've included on the online form itself, perhaps it's worth sending a similar email?

Edwin, suggest you get confirmation contents of articles are included in full as my experience is as follows:

Email sent to Nominet 7th December 2011

I have submitted this link before and asked for it to be included in the .uk consultation feedback:

http://www.mydomainnames.co.uk/articles.html

As my trust in Nominet is decreasing, please confirm that all the contents on all the links to that page (on 7th January 2013 closing day) will be included in the feedback or do I have to submit each article separately?

Nominet reponse 11th December:

Thank you for your emails to the Secretariat of:

Friday 7 December, 07:47
Friday 7 December, 08:10
Friday 7 December, 08:26
Friday 7 December, 10:12
Friday 7 December, 11:25
Friday 7 December, 14:48
Friday 7 December, 14:54
Monday 10 December, 21:33
Monday 10 December, 21:34
Monday 10 December, 22.04

This email responds collectively to the points raised in your emails set out above. In the instances where you have requested further feedback be added to your consultation submission, this has been done. In response to your request for us to confirm that we will include information published on external sites within the consultation feedback, I can confirm that we are taking into account publicly available information relevant to the consultation.
You have asked for further clarification on the following points:

“...does a parked page for ad sense revenue amount to a prior use for a uk domain?”
“...does a domain that is used as a 301/501 redirect for SEO purposes amount to a prior use for a uk domain?”
“...does a domain that is listed on another website amount to a prior use for a uk domain?”

We have requested feedback on the phased release and rights management process as part of the consultation. Only in the light of the responses would we propose to determine the detailed features of the process. If you have views on the approach we should adopt, we would of course welcome this feedback.

Lastly you requested confirmation “that all of the consequences and risks under the current .uk proposal were entered in the Corporate risk register before its launch.” We will not enter into discussions with you regarding the Corporate risk register. This is outside of the scope of the consultation.

I note that you have already made a formal submission in response to the consultation in addition to sending a large volume of emails to the Secretariat and other individual members of Nominet staff. In light of this and in order to be able to appropriately manage the responses to your requests for information, I would be grateful if going forward you could collate your questions into one email and restrict your requests to information within the scope of the consultation. If you would like to add anything further to your consultation response, I would be grateful if you make the additions and re-submit your response in full.

Kind regards

I did a follow up email on 12th December :

With your response “I can confirm that we are taking into account publicly available information relevant to the consultation.” Please confirm that the content of those links provided will be included as your statement is ambiguous at best.

I have not yet received a reply to this email!- NO JUST RECEIVED A REPLY SHOWN BELOW TO MY EARLIER CHASER EMAIL

If you require specific content to be considered as part of your response to the consultation, please feel free to copy and paste the comments into the editable PDF version of the consultation document that Rory forwarded to you on the 26th November and re-submit.

Regards

Good luck with that.

BW
Stephen

 

[Stephen]

Nominet .wales v .uk proposals

Just finished reading through the Nominet .wales consultation looking for points on Nominet .uk proposal, here are some I came across:

Nominet announced:
.wales 1st November 2011 (over 1 year ago before consultation began)
.uk 1st October 2012 ( NO TIME before consultation)

Nominet website:
.wales domainforwales.org.uk with link to news stories and content
.uk main site video, proposal and FAQ’s only

Economic impact study:
.wales Yes released 8th November 2011 before consultation phase independent 48 page report (currently not available via website?)
.uk none commissioned?

Some extracts from the .wales proposal:

Page 5 The domains will operate for the benefit of Welsh society
Any surplus generated from the operation of the .cymru and .wales domains will be ring-fenced and provided to charitable causes for the benefit of Welsh society.
QUESTION: How are Nominet costs to be shared between .uk and .wales domains?

Page 6 Introduction
If adoption is slower then it will take longer to generate a surplus.
QUESTION: who funds missing gap? Answer Nominet UK namespace and will all start-up costs incurred by Nominet be accurately recorded and recovered.
With all ICANN new tld's and UK investors mistrust of Nominet I do not see the take up of .wales domains, so maybe a loss or very high annual renewal costs which in turn will reduce number of domains renewed and registered!

Need a local address?
.wales no any worldwide address will do
.uk originally needed to have a business in the UK until it was pointed out that was illegal under EU law, so now has been softened to must provide a UK contact address.

Security?
.wales Nominet will sign the .cymu and .wales zones to enable registrants to use DNSSEC as a measure againist hijacking of their domain names. We do not propose to introduce any additional security requirements for registrants of .cymru and .wales domain names beyond a requirement to provide accurate and up to date WHOIS data. (Both required by ICANN as minimum standards for new gTLD's)
.uk Compulsory DNSSEC, Daily Malware scanning and UK Address verification.

Cost of Domain
.wales No cost mentioned but annually to run registry with say 4 dedicated staff plus support from all Nominet departments including Executive, hardware costs, ICANN costs and marketing costs especially to .wales I would guess an amount of at least £1,500,000 p.a.
With set up costs of £1 million plus.
Compare to Ireland .ie population 4.4 million assume population to Wales 3 million, (Ireland .ie domain costs £60 pa per domain and has 170,000 domains - so costing about £10m pa to run the registry). Extrapolate crude costing and 125,000 welsh domains at £20 pa per domain generates £2,500,000.
Assume some welsh registrants will stay with .co.uk at £3 p.a. and after Nominet non support of domain investors with .uk, would not expect large take up by UK domain investors.
What about share of Nominet costs?
Welsh domains may even face a huge annual loss?
What would Nominet do then?
.uk £20 pa cost wholesale as added security without external security cost that could be zero if used current surplus from .co.uk.

 

[addz123]

I just read this article on eConsultancy:

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/11191-q-a-nominet-on-the-uk-domain-proposals

He seems to have copy and pasted paragraphs from this to use in the Guardian article. Pretty lazy for a Marketing Director to do this.

Also note:

"There are plenty of people who are suspicious of the fact that some of Nominet’s decision-making committee on this issue have a vested interest in these proposals. How do you respond to this? Is it right that domain registration services should have a part in this decision?

Where a director has a direct or indirect interest in a matter for decision by the board then they must disclose this and, depending on the circumstances, may be obliged to abstain from any relevant discussions or decision.

All board members receive training on their company law responsibilities, with particular emphasis on conflicts of interest. The directors must act in the way they consider in good faith is most likely to promote the success of the company, in keeping with Nominet’s public purpose mandate.

The Board will want to consider feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders before making any decision on this."

Since 4 of the members have a vested interest and indirect interest in this, doesn't it mean that only 5 of the board members, out of 9, will be deciding on the future of the UK internet?

 

[Stephen]

Full interview

I just read this article on eConsultancy:

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/11191-q-a-nominet-on-the-uk-domain-proposals

He seems to have copy and pasted paragraphs from this to use in the Guardian article. Pretty lazy for a Marketing Director to do this.

Looking how he doesnt answer the actual question and every answer he does give creates another series of questions.

He really needs to be interviewed fully and the answers to the real questions properly answered!

 

[Edwin]

Nominet seem to be trying to dodge my email. I received this reply from Leanne Kenny: "Thank you for your email. The information you have highlighted below will be considered along with your original submission. Your feedback, together with the feedback received throughout the consultation period will be reflected in the summary that will be sent to the Board."

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]

Looking how he doesnt answer the actual question and every answer he does give creates another series of questions.

He really needs to be interviewed fully and the answers to the real questions properly answered!

Phil is very skilled at what he does, which in large part seems to consist of deflecting criticism by giving "something that looks superficially like an answer, but isn't" so that the busy journalist in question goes away satisfied without digging further. Great PR work (and no, I'm not being sarcastic - it's because he's so good that it's so hard to get any of the facts of the matter to stick)