.UK Announced

[websaway]

Actually, I agree with all of what you have said, the five generic domains on my list relate directly to my area of business, and nothing else. All are without TMs, and all of the current .co.uk versions of these names are held by well know (Nominet member) domainers right now. I have offered £x,xxx to high £1x,xxx for at least 4 of them over the years, and have been unsuccessful in getting any, so for me, this opportunity, however small, is one I do intend to prepare for, come what may!

It is certainly nothing to do with being a 'Brand Squatter' or 'Domainer', and it is arrogant of you to imply that I am one without knowing me, my business, my experiences trying to buy the current names, and my plans to use the .uks in the unlikely event that I secure one!

On the assumption you got the five names for 5x£20 = £100
I wonder what happens then, you have 5 names worth many many thousands of pounds so a potential massive profit if you find buyers, or maybe hold them indefinately as a pension fund.

 

[websaway]

I suspect that there are several reasons why Nominet has put forward this proposal and that none of them have anything to do with making more dosh for Nominet or its employees.

I'd guess that one reason is pressure from the forces of Law'n'Order/Govt to create a secure name space. Unfortunately none of them seem to understand that the proposed 'security' measures are just a smokescreen that the average phisher will get past whilst the average punter is lulled into a false sense of security that .uk is secure.

Another reason is a determination on the part of some to stamp out the secondary market that developed due to the stupidly low price of domain names coupled with an almost total lack of verification of registrant data. Allowing all current registrants of co.uk names to automatically get the .uk just perpetuates what many see as a problem.

This is about as speculative as it can get, you can only work with what you know.

 

[Hazel Pegg]

This is about as speculative as it can get, you can only work with what you know.

I know that when Jim Davies (http://www.out-law.com/page-6244) was elected to the Nominet Board a lot of people were very concerned. There is ongoing speculation as to who pulled what strings in the ensuing Governance Review. Just as there is speculation now as to what has prompted this direct.uk proposal. It is what we don't officially know that often turns out to be the important info.

 

[websaway]

I know that when Jim Davies (http://www.out-law.com/page-6244) was elected to the Nominet Board a lot of people were very concerned. There is ongoing speculation as to who pulled what strings in the ensuing Governance Review. Just as there is speculation now as to what has prompted this direct.uk proposal. It is what we don't officially know that often turns out to be the important info.

This is so big that no stone will be left unturned I'm sure, but I think speculation without evidence at this stage, though interesting, tends to distort focus.

 

[Edwin]

There is no argument against a migration to .uk from .co.uk in my opinion. Keep the .co.uk active but resolve to .uk for 4-5 years like they did with the digital tv system. Anyone that types in .co.uk into a browser just gets redirected to .uk. No confusion at all, no costs in changing stationary or ad campaigns. That would cost Nominet around £20,000 to implement from what I have been told. After 4-5 years the .co.uk could then resolve to an error page.

That's only deferring the problem. If .co.uk EVER stopped working, you'd be forcing all 9,300,000 registrants (that's today's figure - it will be more then) to rebrand. Even at a ludicrously conservative £1,000/domain on average for the rebranding exercise that's £9.3 billion in rebranding costs - and the actual costs to a single large firm would likely be in the tens of millions. It would not surprise me in the slightest if a "full rebrand" (all active .co.uk registrants changing to .uk) would exceed £50 billion.

When thinking about rebranding, it's worth considering all the hundreds of different places a URL can appear, because the web address would have to be changed on all of them at the same time:
http://www.webmastering.co.uk/seo/url-ubiquity-your-domain-name-should-be-everywhere/

It also means all existing stationery, business cards, brochures, etc. would have to be thrown out.

 

[Brassneck]

That's only deferring the problem. If .co.uk EVER stopped working, you'd be forcing all 9,300,000 registrants (that's today's figure - it will be more then) to rebrand. Even at a ludicrously conservative £1,000/domain on average for the rebranding exercise that's £9.3 billion in rebranding costs - and the actual costs to a single large firm would likely be in the tens of millions. It would not surprise me in the slightest if a "full rebrand" (all active .co.uk registrants changing to .uk) would exceed £50 billion.

When thinking about rebranding, it's worth considering all the hundreds of different places a URL can appear, because the web address would have to be changed on all of them at the same time:
http://www.webmastering.co.uk/seo/url-ubiquity-your-domain-name-should-be-everywhere/

It also means all existing stationery, business cards, brochures, etc. would have to be thrown out.

Edwin

Do you have any costed figures for how this might cost £50 billion. If you can genuinely show that then for me that is the 'killer' argument. However if you are just propagating a very large figure that exaggerates the real impact for effect then that is just scaremongering.

I've no idea what the real cost would actually be and I can think of reasons why it might be less than you suggest. Do you have a proper analysis to hand?

Thanks
Stephen.

 

[GreyWing]

That's only deferring the problem. If .co.uk EVER stopped working, you'd be forcing all 9,300,000 registrants (that's today's figure - it will be more then) to rebrand. Even at a ludicrously conservative £1,000/domain on average for the rebranding exercise that's £9.3 billion in rebranding costs - and the actual costs to a single large firm would likely be in the tens of millions. It would not surprise me in the slightest if a "full rebrand" (all active .co.uk registrants changing to .uk) would exceed £50 billion.

That's why Edwin I would leave the .co.uk to just resolve to .uk for 5 years. So anyone that typed in google.co.uk would find the site but the browser would show google.uk

After 5 years of people advertising the new .uk, people would settle into the idea and old stationary etc would have run out and have been replaced. You could even have it where it did this automatically for 4 years and then in the final year a warning page flashed up top tell people they were being transferred to .uk

The whole migration would be seemless, nobody would ever know and job done.

But in the wider view this is why the consultations need to be published in full because me saying this could on selected summary from Nominet put me in the camp of wanting to see the .uk go ahead. I would only want it to go ahead under these circumstances. But it could be spun, so we need to see the whole documents.

The different views on this site are also the reason I wanted to chat with everyone before calling the EGM, because people have different views and at the end of the day mine doesn't matter - Invincible's idea is equally workable, all are streets ahead of what Nominet is proposing.

 

[anthony]

On the assumption you got the five names for 5x£20 = £100
I wonder what happens then, you have 5 names worth many many thousands of pounds so a potential massive profit if you find buyers, or maybe hold them indefinately as a pension fund.

Such a narrow-minded & cynical statement, but not a surprising domainer thought.

The 'thousands of pounds profit' you perceive is actually the result of the domainers inflated valuations, not mine, which is why domainers opinions in this are down at the bottom of the pile for me!

 

[websaway]

That's only deferring the problem. If .co.uk EVER stopped working, you'd be forcing all 9,300,000 registrants (that's today's figure - it will be more then) to rebrand. Even at a ludicrously conservative £1,000/domain on average for the rebranding exercise that's £9.3 billion in rebranding costs - and the actual costs to a single large firm would likely be in the tens of millions. It would not surprise me in the slightest if a "full rebrand" (all active .co.uk registrants changing to .uk) would exceed £50 billion.

When thinking about rebranding, it's worth considering all the hundreds of different places a URL can appear, because the web address would have to be changed on all of them at the same time:
http://www.webmastering.co.uk/seo/url-ubiquity-your-domain-name-should-be-everywhere/

It also means all existing stationery, business cards, brochures, etc. would have to be thrown out.

Also you know the country is in a prolonged recession, the last thing businesses want is unnecessary work and expense to virtually stay where they were in the first place.

The lunatics are running the asylum.

 

[Edwin]

Edwin

Do you have any costed figures for how this might cost £50 billion. If you can genuinely show that then for me that is the 'killer' argument. However if you are just propagating a very large figure that exaggerates the real impact for effect then that is just scaremongering.

I've no idea what the real cost would actually be and I can think of reasons why it might be less than you suggest. Do you have a proper analysis to hand?

Thanks
Stephen.

Of course I don't have a "full" figure, because that would have to account for every single place a URL appears, which would be an insanely complex exercise.

However, to give a small taster of the magnitude of the issue, consider this:
- There are 4,269,641 commercial vehicles on UK roads http://www.smmt.co.uk/2012/07/smmt-takes-a-long-distance-look-at-uk-automotive/
- It costs from £150-600 to change the livery on one vehicle (depending on size, etc.) - let's pick £250 as a handy "average" http://www.edmonds.co.uk/signage-external-vehicle-liveries.html

Now, assume that 20% of commercial vehicles have a web address printed on them that ends in .co.uk (I don't have an exact figure, but I'd say that was conservative based on an informal survey I did while watching traffic go past on a 30 minute walk into town the other day - it's easy enough for you to do the same and substitute whatever number you're most comfortable with)

That means that there would be 853,928 commercial vehicles needing to be rebranded, at £250 each. That's £213,482,000.

Ok, now let's look at business cards. Consider
- There are 29,264,000 people employed by companies in the UK http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file50753.pdf (p8)
- Average cost to design and print 250 business cards: approx. £50

Assuming that 1-in-5 employees have their own business cards, that's £292,640,000 in reprint costs for the first batch.

The above exercise would need to be repeated for every single place that a web address can appear (there are hundreds, each with its own cost) but as you can see we're already over half a billion pounds just for business cards and the lettering on the side of vehicles! And that's even with assigning a £0 value to the time of the company employees needed to implement their side of the changes.

 

[websaway]

Such a narrow-minded & cynical statement, but not a surprising domainer thought.

The 'thousands of pounds profit' you perceive is actually the result of the domainers inflated valuations, not mine, which is why domainers opinions in this are down at the bottom of the pile for me!

Why are they inflated valuations. you were the one who said you had offered £xxxx to high £1x,xxx to obtain the co.uk versions. So your valuations not mine.

There is not a person on Earth who if they owned Loans.com would not become a potential domain seller. And remember anything that has an inherent value has a potential buyer.

 

[Edwin]

Another example figure: tradeshows.

There are 2,400,000 m2 of tradeshow/exhibition space sold each year (2010 figure) http://www.exhibitionworld.co.uk/featuredetails/34/the-history-of-the-uk-exhibition-industry

Assuming that there is one rollup banner or similar per 3 m2 of floor space, that's 800,000 tradeshow banners.

Assuming that 1/2 those banners have a .co.uk web address on them, that's 400,000 banners needing to be reprinted.

Average cost for a banner: £130 http://www.design-matrix.co.uk/index.php?l=product_list&c=1

That's £52,000,000 for reprinting tradeshow banners. (More sophisticated booth decor costs a lot more, that's absolutely bottom-of-the-range vinyl rollup type banners, not display walls or custom elements etc.)

 

[anthony]

Why are they inflated valuations. you were the one who said you had offered £xxxx to high £1x,xxx to obtain the co.uk versions. So your valuations not mine.

There is not a person on Earth who if they owned Loans.com would not become a potential domain seller. And remember anything that has an inherent value has a potential buyer.

My offers were all lower than the initial 'ransom' prices, and were based on having spare money at that time to invest the web sites, not to resell the domains for profit. A subtle difference, but a clear one too.

 

[websaway]

You know I think it would be helpful for focus if we got an issue out of the way on this thread, and that is about domain values.
Domain names, as long as they have a commercial value to business do have and will continue to have a financial value of some sort, whether we like it or not , it's the same as taxes and house prices, we might like it or we might not like it but that's the way it is.

 

[Brassneck]

Of course I don't have a "full" figure, because that would have to account for every single place a URL appears, which would be an insanely complex exercise.

However, to give a small taster of the magnitude of the issue, consider this:
- There are 4,269,641 commercial vehicles on UK roads http://www.smmt.co.uk/2012/07/smmt-takes-a-long-distance-look-at-uk-automotive/
- It costs from £150-600 to change the livery on one vehicle (depending on size, etc.) - let's pick £250 as a handy "average" http://www.edmonds.co.uk/signage-external-vehicle-liveries.html

Now, assume that 20% of commercial vehicles have a web address printed on them that ends in .co.uk (I don't have an exact figure, but I'd say that was conservative based on an informal survey I did while watching traffic go past on a 30 minute walk into town the other day - it's easy enough for you to do the same and substitute whatever number you're most comfortable with)

That means that there would be 853,928 commercial vehicles needing to be rebranded, at £250 each. That's £213,482,000.

Ok, now let's look at business cards. Consider
- There are 29,264,000 people employed by companies in the UK http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file50753.pdf (p8)
- Average cost to design and print 250 business cards: approx. £50

Assuming that 1-in-5 employees have their own business cards, that's £292,640,000 in reprint costs for the first batch.

The above exercise would need to be repeated for every single place that a web address can appear (there are hundreds, each with its own cost) but as you can see we're already over half a billion pounds just for business cards and the lettering on the side of vehicles! And that's even with assigning a £0 value to the time of the company employees needed to implement their side of the changes.

Thanks for the that - looks like it might be worth investing in a business card business.

However, as you said it would be an "insanely complex exercise", and even for the figures you quote there is at least one fundamental flaw as I see it. I doubt if 20 per cent of the working population walk around with business cards - not sure they are needed by anybody working on the shop floor in tescos or a factory for instance. A more representative figure might be a proportion of managers etc.

My point is, if you do promote these kind of figures then I think you should have some strong analysis to back them up otherwise people will take your more cast iron arguments less seriously. This isn't a dig, just some advice from somebody who has worked in Government where, despite what people think, decisions are made on evidence which can be substantiated.

Stephen.

 

[Brassneck]

Another example figure: tradeshows.

There are 2,400,000 m2 of tradeshow/exhibition space sold each year (2010 figure) http://www.exhibitionworld.co.uk/featuredetails/34/the-history-of-the-uk-exhibition-industry

Assuming that there is one rollup banner or similar per 3 m2 of floor space, that's 800,000 tradeshow banners.

Assuming that 1/2 those banners have a .co.uk web address on them, that's 400,000 banners needing to be reprinted.

Average cost for a banner: £130 http://www.design-matrix.co.uk/index.php?l=product_list&c=1

That's £52,000,000 for reprinting tradeshow banners. (More sophisticated booth decor costs a lot more, that's absolutely bottom-of-the-range vinyl rollup type banners, not display walls or custom elements etc.)

Or some / many companies will re-use their banners at many shows so actually far fewer than 800,000 banners are required.

Essentially we don't actually know.

Stephen.

 

[Stephen]

Come on, you're showing your self-interest again. You can't be against direct.uk citing confusion but back .com.uk because that creates an equal if not greater risk.

I'm for .uk if they go to .co.uk owners completely. (pair ownership)

Unlike Nominet who makes a proposal without considering the consequences and other viewpoints. I'm trying to find reasons why that may not be a good thing, hence my earlier post.

Invincible made a valid and sensible argument against it. I personally think .com.uk would not work as there is nothing to distinguish that from .co.uk.

However to move the debate on I suggested that the 3rd level .net.uk maybe a way of releasing additional uk domain capacity without destabilising the .co.uk.

I as everybody in this process has a self interest but I'm trying to do my best to create a better counter proposal than the Nominet .uk proposal as it is.

I believe the current Nominet proposal would be disasterous for many people.

 

[websaway]

My offers were all lower than the initial 'ransom' prices, and were based on having spare money at that time to invest the web sites, not to resell the domains for profit. A subtle difference, but a clear one too.

You said and I quote
" I have offered £x,xxx to high £1x,xxx for at least 4 of them over the years, and have been unsuccessful in getting any"

So you created the value by making the offer, the domains must have had a value to you in order for you to offer the amount you claim.

By the way, ransom suggests the owner was not legally entitled to own the domain and you were. If that was the case then you should have looked for other methods of redress.

 

[aZooZa]

I'm for .uk if they go to .co.uk owners completely. (pair ownership)

Unlike Nominet who makes a proposal without considering the consequences and other viewpoints. I'm trying to find reasons why that may not be a good thing, hence my earlier post.

Invincible made a valid and sensible argument against it. I personally think .com.uk would not work as there is nothing to distinguish that from .co.uk.

However to move the debate on I suggested that the 3rd level .net.uk maybe a way of releasing additional uk domain capacity without destabilising the .co.uk.

I as everybody in this process has a self interest but I'm trying to do my best to create a better counter proposal than the Nominet .uk proposal as it is.

I believe the current Nominet proposal would be disasterous for many people.

I completely agree. And I think it was you who made another very important point earlier regarding Nominet (and I'm paraphrasing) constantly keeping the door of uncertainty open with these continuous and ongoing 'consultations'. In other words, "Let's have a consultation for THIS, and then another one for THAT"... and never actually saying "We'll draw a line under THAT - it's not going to happen. That boat has sailed.".

Before they even come to a decision about direct.uk; they've thrown another spanner in the works already, with many creators and innovators stuck in a quandry as to whether or not to proceed with development projects in the .co.uk space. They still can't make their minds up about how they're going to deal with the existing aftermarket in terms of how expired domains are released - that's been going on for an age now.

My own view is that .net.uk is the solution.

 

[websaway]

This is a domainers argument. I'm a poacher and gamekeeper so see this industry from both sides and as a buyer I can confirm that it's full of greedy parasites. I also find that the wealthier the registrant, the more expensive the domains, which flies in the face of true market values.

I agree it's always better to buy something from someone who needs the money.