Nominet fails to pin down its net cop role

Nominet, the .uk domain name manager, yesterday held its inaugural .uk Policy Forum, a talking shop designed to give stakeholders a chance to voice their opinions about internet governance. The day-long event in London's West End tackled, in a very roundabout way, Nominet's role in taking down websites believed to be engaged …

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh

Strikes me as a lot of hot air with little of actual value.

Will Nominet + Police = Judge, jury and executioner?

[Justin Clements]

Cheek of it

>>But perhaps that was not the point. Nominet has had a problematic few years, in which it was accused of not acting in the public's best interests.

Nominet was never meant to have the public's best interest at heart - it was meant to be a trade organisation owned by the ISP community. It was the ISP community that made it successful and paid it's bills.

However, right from the start Nominet tried to sideline the people that created it.

Let's get this in perspective - the ISP industry at large wanted a Nominet that had free domain names. Even Demon and a couple of others put forward a plan to run the UK namespace free of charge and to keep domains free for everyone.

[Anonymous Coward]

legitimise the process for seizing domains used by crooks

Should read

"legitimise the process for seizing domains used by suspects who have not been convicted".

Therein lies the problem. This is allowing the Government to seize domains operated by people that the police deem 'unworthy' on the basis of unproved allegations.

Which has ramifications for freedom of speech, and even Government censorship.

[Alan Brown]

gerrymandering....

Putting the important stuff last and then trying to rush through it for time issues is an old and well-known tactic.

It's also an indication they're nervous about it.

Don't forget that nominet is delegated stewardship of the .uk TLD by the UK govt and that can be withdrawn at any point, however if domains are going to be shut down then it should be on grounds such as fake contact details, or else by court order.

Having shutdowns ordered by the police is far too dangerous. There needs to be oversight or else we'll start seeing shutdown orders because of personal enmity.