Chairman, CEO of Nominet ousted as member rebellion drives .uk registry back to non-commercial roots The CEO and chairman of Nominet have been ousted by the .uk internet registry operator's membership. Three other members were also removed from the not-for-profit’s board in a clear rejection of their efforts to push the company in a more commercial direction. At an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on Monday, a single …
Such was the level of distrust that PublicBenefit.uk organiser Simon Blackler refused to give a three-minute rundown of his campaign’s position at the EGM after Nominet told him he would need to logout of the meeting after giving his remarks and then log back in again.
Err.. No. This is one of the many curious decisions Nominet has made over the years that hasn't been rooted in any technical, operational or moral basis. Can't say I'm entirely suprised that Mr Blackler, holder of the many proxy votes chose to ignore Nominet.
Still, closer than I'd have hope, and it looks like the fix was almost in. But now Nominet can get back to basics.
a FORENSIC audit
Thgere's a world of difference here
Take it from soneone who's been down this path before, they WILL argue an "audit" is sufficient to avoid having the liabilities land on them
All an accounting "audit" does is to verify the columns in the books add up. A full forensic audit actually looks behind the umbers and looks at what money actually went where, for what reasons
Expect the remaining and former board members to throw every possible legal obstruction at preventing them being held to account and their activities exposed. "Commercial sensitivity" and "contractual secrecy" are both items likely to figure highly in the reasons
Expect the remaining and former board members to throw every possible legal obstruction at preventing them being held to account and their activities exposed. "Commercial sensitivity" and "contractual secrecy" are both items likely to figure highly in the reasons
I'm not sure they could be obstructive. The results of any forensic audit could be made public, or at least available to members. Old, active board members may try to object, but could be outvoted, ie it's in the member's interests to see the true position of the company. It may be embarassing, but this is effectively a house-cleaning exercise and chance for a fresh start.
It may be embarassing to former board members, but that's not something that might be easily challenged, ie facts are facts. Contract or commercial sensitivity would really only apply to relationships with 3rd parties, not any wholey owned Nominet entities.
I would look to change the rules so that whole management board have to be voted in each year if they wish to keep control away from bad management.
This time the EGM was successful, eventually, however without major changes in management practices to limit management using "long knife" methods to disenfrancise the members then it will happen again.
There are a other not4profits with the same management structure and policies that didn't escape the death hold, this win should not be wasted but used to create a new management model policy so that those trusted to control a not4profit cannot change the rules so as to divert funds away from the core business.
Indeed, I hope many will now benefit, from a better-run Nominet as well as the charities Nominet ought to be supporting, thanks to one person choosing to act to right a set of wrongs.
An idle innocent wonder: Gosh, there have been DDOS attacks on some Krystal platforms over the last few days...
One can only guess at what was happening. Possibly some flustered chaps hacking a spreadsheet trying to find away to plausibly massage the counts into not losing? Or 15 minutes of calculations, followed by 2.75 hours of digital shredding. Or three hours in a conf call with a tame QC to find a way of invalidating the lot or suing the winners?
This needs to be studied by future campaign managers as how not to do things; it's well within the reals of reason that every antagonistic, duplicitous trick the board played in the last six weeks cost them the 5 percent they lost by.
Not to forget the confrontational way the closed the forum was the spark that ignited this whole mess.
Whatever comes next has got to be better; Hoping the rest of the board read the writing on the wall, and appoint the two suggested directors.
it's well within the reals of reason that every antagonistic, duplicitous trick the board played in the last six weeks cost them the 5 percent they lost by.
It's also well possible that their tricks - being secretive about how voting numbers were calculated, a concerted campaign of FUD, making email addresses of members unavailable to campaigners whilst bombarding the same members with pro no-vote emails, and so on, actually narrowed that margin to only 5%. If they had played fair, it could well have been a bigger margin, but by the sounds of it, the likelihood of them deciding to play fair at the last minute was miniscule. Once they started down the road of heavy-handedness and obfuscation, there was no going back, and it's good to see them get their just desserts.
Email from Robert Binns acting Chairman Nominet
"To start with, the named Directors have vacated their Board seats. And Russell Haworth announced yesterday that he is stepping down from his role as CEO. Eleanor Bradley and Ben Hill remain in their executive positions."
The proposal passed by members was to remove 5 directors, not 5 board members. The above are still executives, how's that supposed to work unless we get a new board of new appointees like the last lot?
The problem is executive directors are also employees with management responsibilities and thus cannot be as easily dismissed as a non-executive director. Employment law applies and that means any dismissal will take time and negotiation. I suspect that long term their positions will be untenable as it is clear from the vote that they have lost the confidence of members, but it will take a while to unwind matters.
Directors don't have employment rights.
As Directors, no. A Directorship is an office, not an employment.
But directors can also be employees under S230 of the Employment Act 1996. Dismissing them from the Board has no automatic impact on their employment and getting rid of them follows normal employment law or hoping they do the decent thing and resign on the basis their position is untenable (without getting into constructive dismissal).
Just as Haworth would have had to resign (it's not tenable for the CEO not to be on the board) so Hill (as CFO) will have to go too. Bradley is a little more flexible, but it would be bizarre for the MD of the Registry business not to be C-Suite.
Well, in many organisations the CEO can't be on the board. Until quite recently, charities couldn't pay their board members (aka "trustees"), and most charities haven't changed their articles to take advantage of the change in law, so none of their executives are on the board. (The board may bring them into meetings to report and inform, but may exclude them from parts too.)
Maybe, as a not-for-profit, Nominet would have done well to follow that rule.
Exactly. A board of directors often includes staff members (who are usually senior managers / executives) and people who aren't employed by the company. The two groups are usually called "executive directors" and "non-executive directors". (Sometimes other workers will be directors too.)
The EGM has removed various people from the board. It doesn't change whether or not they're employees. No employee will have had an employment contract saying that they're entitled to be a director, that's not something the HR department or the CEO can promise.
Mine - and it wasn't GoDaddy for the reasons that should be obvious to anyone who's used them - doesn't seem to have signed up to vote in favour of the resolution.
Apart from the initial joining fee, it would make sense to become a member given how *.uk domains I have. Please can the new board reduce that £400 cost?
If you want a registrar that supported it for a while, the publicbenefit.uk homepage lists the supporters. The largest ones who supported for a while are Gandi, 20I, Coherent, Crystal, and ANY-Web. Two even larger ones, TUCOWS and Namecheap, also voted in support but made up their minds later. There are about 480 other supporting members available. I have only listed those managing over 30K .uk domains. There is plenty of competition available while allowing you to stick with companies supporting the motion.
I am full of respect for the way Simon Blackler organised this campaign and the way he conducted himself. It is also moving to see so many members taking a stand and saying enough is enough. And a call out to Kieren McCarthy for such persistent journalism too.
The campaign is of course only halfway there. The signatories called for a Resolution 2 as well: that Sir Michael Lyons be appointed as new interim Chairman, and Axel Pawlik also be made a director, to fill a vacuum of leadership in the company.
The considerable challenge is that the remaining directors have reportedly been unanimous in opposition to Resolution 1, let alone Resolution 2 which they blocked. Therefore, as things stand, Nominet is in the hands of people who opposed the Public Benefit campaign.
Not all those directors actually hold the convictions promulgated by the CEO and Chairman. But a time is coming where they have to decide whether to recognise the prevailing wishes of the membership, which included the early appointment of Sir Michael as interim chair - something which has been done before and is by no means unwise, given his credentials and knowledge of the company, and the need for orderly transition - or to obstruct the wishes of the membership which have been demonstrated today. The campaign was about both resolutions.
I’d suggest they need to decide whether they accept the changes called for, or step down, or resist and obstruct.
That final option would be tiresome for all, and damaging for the company, because in setting themselves in opposition to the will of the members (who delegate power to them and can remove that power) they would be risking a Resolution 3, which would remove them as well. Simon Blackler has now set a deadline of March 26th (the end of this week) for them to indicate if they will opt for that early appointment of Sir Michael. In practice I suspect they may need two weeks to consult and clarify.
However, their response will indicate whether they have really heard the will of the members and accepted the changes proposed, or not.
But for tonight, a sincere well done to Simon Blackler, and to everyone who cared enough to take a stand for the UK namespace.
"The considerable challenge is that the remaining directors have reportedly been unanimous in opposition to Resolution 1, let alone Resolution 2 which they blocked."
This is chapter and verse repeat of what happened in 2001 with DOMAINZ
Presumably Simon et al have studued how to deal with that
Change it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a vow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!
As one whose avocation is statistics, something was nagging at me as I finished reading this well-reported (and very well-done) article.
When I decided that I might know what was causing my "itch which needed to be scratched", I checked on what I generally remembered of the last US election (presidential). Here is what I found, regarding the US's popular vote (the actual vote tallies of individuals; of real PEOPLE, and not the 'Electoral College' vote count) for the two candidates--
Donald Trump: 47.7%; Joe Biden: 52.3% [for simplicity, let's call the loser-winner ratio 48:52].
Now, from this article--
“...At an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on Monday, a single resolution to remove all five passed narrowly [PDF] with 52.7 per cent of the vote...". [again: for simplicity, let's peg this loss-win ratio at 47:53].
Now, the correlation between these two loser-winner ratios is either a fluke of some kind, or an indication of a much larger, much more prevalent--and extremely disturbing--situation.
What is just as disturbing is that history demonstrates that we are content to not educate ourselves, to let our emotions rather than facts make our decisions for us, and to let this perilous situation be a continuing part of our very existence.
It has been said, in one form or another, that democracy is a particularly poor form of government (“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter”--Sir Winston Churchill) since most would acknowledge that the majority of the population are ill-informed (some, somewhat indelicately, have characterized the majority as' fools').
I prefer to remember Sir Winston Churchill's 'take' on the situation, to wit:
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.";
and that of John Philpot Curran:
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance [emphasis added]; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
It seems as if these two sets of data presented here indicate, and indeed dictate that there exists a perilously close gap between freedom, and the lack of it.
*******************************************************
"I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac."--Eric Hoffer
[for the benefit of you 47 / 48 percent who live in an alternate universe, Hoffer is talking about the maniac--yes, maniac--named Adolph Hitler. But you probably think (if you think, at all, of that one instance of insanity, on a world-wide level, that Hitler was an OK sort of guy who's gotten a bad rap, and that it's somewhat sad that he's just a little misunderstood]
To be fair, there is not even democracy in a democracy any more, the whole system is biased. When less a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the population gets to decide who the whole population are allowed to choose between (the pre-election, money election, to filter out undesirables):
Lawrence Lessig explaining Lesterland is well worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
nautica: quoting Eric Hoffer: "I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac."
Hoffer was wrong to suggest that it was 'of its own free will'. There was considerable physical violence by the NAZI sympathisers and members towards all who opposed them, particularly political opponents, Knonrad Adenaur being one of the rare exceptions to get elected opposing the NAZIs. Hitler was appointed chancellor by Paul von Hindenburg while Germany suffered extreme inflation and terrible stress due to paying for reparations to the allies for the 'Great' (now first world) war. Germany was a not a peaceful, prosperous democracy a the time, there were over 30 different political parties.
yep. Nazi vote in open election about 30%
Reichstag Fire - presidential decree limits civil liberties
Decree used to remove opposition
Enabling Act passed through support from conservative parties and intimidation of opposing parties gives absolute power to Mr Hilter.
And then the propaganda really begins to be used on the German people.
This is great news, the fun times on the Haworth express gravy train are over.
Back to brass tacks and a focus back on what was always the real purpose - to run a registry as a non-profit organisation!
Hopefully a thorough financial audit will now be done, just to be sure everything was 'above board' over the last few years of money being thrown at attempts to diversify.
Also, hopefully .co.uk domains renewal prices will return at least part the way back to where they really should be, in time!
Eleanor Bradley and Ben Hill to remain in their executive posts.
Eleanor Bradley and Ben Hill were on the Board. As quoted many times, the Board were unanimous in their decisions. This is the same Board that used all the dirty tricks possible.
The ideology of straying away from Nominet’s core values whilst being paid very nicely at the same time are embedded within the Board members psyche. An ideology that will still remain concealed even when remaining in Nominet in their executive posts.
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What the hell is it that Nominet actually does?
For all that's visible to the average chap on the Clapham Omnibus, it looks like they manage a bloody big spreadsheet/database of names, addresses, and IP addresses, and tell the top level DNS servers what points where.
Obviously there's more to it that I'm the chap on the Clapham Omnibus is missing, because that doesn't take a fistful of executive types to manage that, and I he can't imagine that any ethical and competent executives would remain in a pointless post simply because the pay was good and the expense lunches tasty.
Seriously - what do they do that couldn't be done by a bloke in a shed at the bottom of his garden?
"What could be worse than killing a golden goose? Killing someone else's golden goose"
This week's "Who Me?" feature.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/22/who_me/
A future article will feature how, "Simon" (not his real name!) halted the gravy train at a UK not-for-profit public benefit organisation
That's pretty much it. The only thing that they are doing that couldn't be done by a bloke in a shed at the bottom of his garden is the Dispute Resolution stuff, however to be fair I suspect that most of these issues arise because Nominet essentially appears to have a first registered first served policy for registrations, and also has no problems with mass registrations by domain squatters, probably because they pay them lots.
Changing the rules to make it clear that domain squatters etc might as well just pack up and go home because you won't support their business would likely remove most of the need for arbitration.
"Seriously - what do they do that couldn't be done by a bloke in a shed at the bottom of his garden?".
The same as any other major TLD. Operate a registry that processes thousands of add/renew/delete/update requests every day - and never fail. Run a DNS service that handles billions of queries per day - and never fails. Run a whois service that handles billions of queries per day - and never fails. Provide a dispute resolution service and policy making procedures. Interact with law enforcement, government, regulators and so on. Plus the cuddly stuff like outreach, member engagement, participation in ICANN and other industry forums. Then there's the usual business stuff - sales, marketing, finance, contracts, HR, etc.
This takes a bit more resourcing than "a bloke in a shed at the bottom of his garden".
Bloke with a big shed then.
Marketing - the registrars do that - why do Nominet need to do it ?.
Finance - only needed to find intuitive ways to line the directors pockets - realistically :-
money in from domains - (server costs + staff costs + a bit for contingency + a bit for good causes) == 0.
Personally, I knew they's blew it when I found they were using Oracle as the backend database,
The registry is only as bloated and inefficient as it has been made by the gravy chasing leadership has made it over the last few decades.
Nominet have tried (successfully!!) to make a mountain of the molehill, it seriously does need reforming and has done for several years, I have been a member for over 20 years and when I started there wereother members complaining about the way it was run - and they wee right then and they are still right - it's just that Nominet managed to sideline, ignore and gerrymander the system against them.
Any idiot can run a monopoly, unfortunately for the erstwhile board, they were special idiots that brought the monopoly down.
"Marketing - the registrars do that - why do Nominet need to do it ?"
To encourage registrars to sell .uk names instead of .whatever. Or persuade registrars to make .uk at least as prominent as the other tat^WTLDs that they're selling. Registrars won't market a TLD if they think the registry doesn't do that or won't support their marketing efforts.
If registrars don't like a TLD, they won't sell it or promote it to their customers and the TLD is fucked. The "success" of these new gTLDs proves that.
Registry finance is non-trivial. Ask a beancounter about deferred revenue accounting or cross-border (and now post-Brexit) VAT.
"To encourage registrars to sell .uk names instead of .whatever."
Seriously, they don't do that and don't need to. That's an issue for the new GTLDs because A) nobody has seen them so they don't have any existing credibility and B) there are hundreds of them available. Neither is the case for .uk. .uk is what you buy if you want to look like you're connected to the UK. Everybody knows that. It doesn't have a massive selling point otherwise. It's also very popular as TLDs go just because the UK has had sites for a long time. Anything they're spending advertising .uk is money wasted.
I think you should go into your shed, lock the door and throw the key out the window.
Then have just a little think about the ridiculous statement you just made.
All the upvoters of this particular clueless comment should join you - could get a bit crowded in there.
Running a registry of the size of .co.uk is an incredibly complex and involved process.
It is classed as critical infrastructure, for obvious reasons.
But, heck, I'm not going to do the homework for you - if you are truly interested in actually having a clue, go and research it, then come back and tell me you could run the same operation from your shed.
Granted, there's a bunch of infrastructure that needs to be maintained, and upgraded as hardware reaches EoL. That hardly needs a board to oversee it, it's a technical day-to-day job by people the board would never involve themselves with. I think of the hardware people in my organisation, and the sort of things they have to do on a day-to-day basis, with no board involvement whatsoever, and I work in an organisation that by its nature manages a lot of change for a lot of clients, in various and myriad ways.
The job of a registrar, on the other hand, is notable in its unchanging nature: Keep a lit of domain names, manage renewals, maintain infrastructure hardware such as root DNS servers, have DR plans for such, and so on. All stuff which should have been well settled a couple of decades ago. It's not like the protocols that underpin the internet change substantially on an ongoing basis. The last actual change I can think of is the deprecation of TLS 1.0, and unless I'm mistaken, that will have affected Nominet in nothing but the most cursory fashion, since they are responsible for the domain names, not the transport layer implementation of individual websites.
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One of the priority tasks is for Nominet to start unravelling from these new tlds. This would of course mean no more trips abroad to promote these back-end services i.e. “jollies” as was Las Vegas.
https://www.nominet.uk/what-happened-at-namescon-global-2019/
https://www.nominet.uk/events/namescon-dinner/
Talking of Nominet providing back-end services to the the new tlds (the new “shinys”), Eleanor Bradley in the EGM said “We do this with a healthy margin, we do not cross subsidize”. Eleanor Bradley no longer Director is still in executive post.
To see what tlds Nominet is involved in:
https://ntldstats.com/backend/Nominet
Looking down the chart how was it cost-justifiable to provide services to .wed (now dead in the water) with just 35 registrations and .moi with just 262 registrations etc etc?
Ben Hill, no longer Director is still in executive post, needs to open up the financial accounts to the new incoming Directors.
One of the priority tasks is for Nominet to start unravelling from these new tlds.
Why? If you have decades of experience running a stable registry then that's one of the few useful "diversified" income streams you can develop outside of your core .UK business. Nominet enjoys a global reputation for their expertise in that core role.
Organisations like NATS enjoy a profitable sideline in providing training and technical consultancy services to other countries in addition to their core job of running Air Traffic Control for the UK and most UK airports.
Provided there is no cross-subsidy and it's a self-sustaining, profitable business then providing back-ends to other TLDs (whether brandTLDs, gTLDs or small national domains) is an eminently sensible business for them to be in - much more so than autonomous vehicles!
.wed might have catastrophically few registrations but that's on the Registry (Top Level Domain Holdings). So long as they're paying Nominet a fair service fee, then a TLD's (lack of) profitability is none of Nominet's concern. We should be happy to take their money and funnel it into Public Benefit causes.
The FCA regulates "friendly societies". Building Societies are the most well known examples of these, which is why the FCA is involved, but your local working men's club is probably also a friendly society, and has to comply with the same rules.
The Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies regulates community interest companies.
The Charities Commission regulates charities - different rules in Scotland and Northern Ireland, they have their own charity regulators.
HMRC regulates Community Amateur Sports Clubs.
Nominet is not any of these so is not regulated by any of them. Just Companies House who mostly only care that they file the correct documents on time.
" I am very surprised that the FCA has not become involved"
Unless actively asked to get involved by the organisations in question they (and the fraud squad) will NOT poke their noses in unless the cases are so blatent that they MUST get involved or lose face
This is why fraud and corruption in councils are almost never investigated unless there's an actual change of management (Even when auditors produced a report showing evidence of seriously dodgy behaviour, it was imposssible to get regulators/investigators to look at it)
I see Mark Wood has appealed to the government to overthrow this vote. He's continuing his claims from three days ago that Nominet is "part of the critical national infrastructure" and has stated several times that "The government is watching the situation closely". This sounds like an appeal to cronies in government to back up his particular right to the gravy train. An independent not for profit Nominet would be an asset to CNI since it would be independent of commercial interests and have a vested interest in providing an efficient service. Nominet as-is with its burbled nonsense about "for profit with a purpose" only had an interest in maximising the payments to its officers. That was the "purpose" of profit as seem by the chairman, directors, and CEO.
Nominet claims Government could intervene in boardroom ousting
"Mr Wood claimed the Government may intervene using an obscure claims of the Digital Economy Act to retake control of the registry in the event of a “serious” failing that could harm consumers."
I agree with Simon Blackler that Mr Wood was, and is, trying to spread FUD and I'll add that he appears to be trying to bamboozle the government with technobabble in the hope that he can scare them into letting him continue to profit from Nominet.
Given that the members are registrars, very much part of that critical infrastructure, they know at least as much as Mr Wood about operating it. Directors approved of by those members should be relied on to run it properly unless events prove otherwise. The fact that the members, given their background, did not approve of the existing directors should tell any government watching the situation closely all they need to know.
Very much from the Trumpian playbook:
I realise that this may come as a shock to many of you, so deep breath, put down that cup:
THE WORLD HAS NOT ENDED. IT IS STILL THERE. DRAGONS ARE NOT FLYING AROUND KILLING EVERYONE.
So the worst prediction fo disaster form teh former board of Nominet have not come true.
Being branded a liar (sorry, creator of fake news) and being barred from the EGM is another fit of pique is, I guess, an occupational hazard for journos these days. But, sadly, a strong indicator that you were on the money in so many ways ;-)
I owe you a debt for making me aware of Simon's campaign that the old guard were very effectively hiding from their own membership. That helped roll-up the pledges even in advance of OCR-ing half a forest to get the postcard out.
The difference you made may have been more than the winning margin. One bit you haven't reported on yet - is the Nominet staff who have always been loyal to membership and delivered excellent service despite what was going on in the boardroom. What are they feeling today, euphoric too or worried for their jobs in a slimmed down and re-focussed Nominet? The old guard said the best talent would leave. Will they?
In the old days keeping an ear cocked in an Abingdon pub might have provided answers. So no beers on expenses nowadays Kieran. Oh well - you know you did a good job. Hope it is firmly stuck to your CV - though it would be horrid if El Reg lost you.
A grateful Nominet Member
@Lon24, I've been following your comments on this topic for a while - it's clear you've kept a close eye on this. If you feel the Reg's coverage really has made a difference, then I'll just leave this here: https://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award.
I'd also say cheers from me Kieran, I'll admit to issuing a little fist pump this morning when I read this. Not bad for a topic I knew little about a few weeks ago. Thanks.
You may not like it as style (and I agree that outside a headline or other compressed summary, like a Minutes of Meeting, it would be poor communication) but one thing it is not is ungrammatical.
Your proposed alternative would be equally grammatical and equally poor style - the pair of commas implies the "and CEO" is parenthetical whereas it is obviously intended the Chairman and CEO carry the same weight. Normal writing would be "Chairman and CEO of Nominet both ousted..." but that is obviously not as good in a headline context.
Whilst 2 executives stay in position until they receive their ridiculously overly inflated severance ( no shame from them 2) & an acting chairman who praises the work of a Chairman who has overseen the removal of 5 board members, you can expect the same rubbish you have seen for many many years.
You can’t have internal executives who are highlighted as having an unacceptable vision for the company, leading individuals in the company, it is untenable & they need to resign & have some self respect, not just look for a larger golden handshake.
There are more ingrained issues in the company from the advice being given to the board from within the company, whether that is from a legal, policy or member engagement perspective. All 3 have shown complete disregard for the average member & all 3 come under the leadership of these 2 executive. It’s a mindset within the organisation that needs removing & unfortunately it’s fairly deep rooted now.
Much closer than I perhaps expected in terms of organisations rather than weighted votes. There was the suspicion that GoDaddy and Ionos were going to vote against, but it's interesting to see that over 630 members joined them - not a case of a few of the top-10 throwing their (capped) votes around and drowning out hordes of smaller members.
We heard a lot from Public Benefit and from the board during the campaign, but with one exception those orgs have kept their heads down and few have argued in support of the board online.
The results from Civica show the average weighted votes per voter was:
* FOR - 3286.6
* AGAINST - 3448.5
Which shows significant engagement on both sides from small <1,000 vote members (to tug that average down from the big boys throwing around 100k+ votes at a time).
Without a doubt there will be a non-trivial number who simply did what they were told.
I struggle to believe it was all 600+ though.
Very glad that the motion passed, a pint for Simon --->
It would just be interesting to hear the perspective from the other side - not that they're ever likely to raise their heads above the parapet and the voting seems to be secret ballot, so we won't know their names unless they tell us.
Ever wonder what happened to the money you paid to register a co.uk domain name?
Why would a UK domain name registry open an office in the United States? To sell co.uk domain names to Americans perhaps, or to justify trips for Nominet to pop over once in a while. Absolute folly.
Has Nominet closed its United States presence or if not this needs to be a priority.
Nominet US Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nominet UK established as a vehicle for employing staff based in the United States of America to support and facilitate expansion of new business in that region. www.nominet.uk/nominet-us-inc
Registered Address:
216 Park Road
Burlingame
Califormia 94010-4206 USA
And www.nominet.uk/nominet-launches-in-north-american-market-cyber-security-specialist-brings-powerful-dns-level-threat-monitoring-and-analytics-to-identify-hidden-dangers-in-vast-datasets/
Office 228
Columbia Gateway
6700 Alexander Bell Drive
Suite 200
Columbia Washington 21046, USA
Why would a UK domain name registry open an office in the United States?
Good question. Here are some others:
Why did Nominet buy Cyglas? What did it cost? Is it a profit centre or a money pit?
How is Cyglas's business any way related to running .uk?
How much has Nominet pissed away on other non-core activities (white space spectrum, IoT, etc)?
How much has Nominet pissed away on a pile of .shit TLDs? Have any of them reached break-even?
Who hired Russell Howarth? Why?
Why is Nominet recruiting for a job based in Canberra? What business is it doing there?
https://jobs.nominet.uk/job/Canberra-Customer-Resolution-Advisor/658587301/
Many moons ago, the Silicon Valley credit union (non profit, owned by the members) added some leadership to help professionalize operations. Within 6 months they voted to turn the place into a bank and increase their salaries and bonuses and award themselves stock. Just like Nominet's board, they also unceremoniously were voted out,
Once upon a time the UK had a bunch of non-profit, member-owned building societies - Woolwich, Abbey National, C&G, Leeds, Halifax, etc. They were stable but boring businesses. Ffor the most part, prudently run and accountable to their members. Just like a TLD registry should be. Then the financial whizz kids moved in to make a fast buck and fucked it all up. Just like they did to Nominet.
Companies Act requires that the details of "shareholders" be supplied in the format requested by the applicant. Guessing that the request was not for 500 sheets of paper but a readable file then someone or some people neeed to be prosecuted. Please please do so.
I was sent a large number of sheets of A3 with the tiniest print possible to show the 10,000 members [guarantors /shareholders] of the Consumers Association owners of Which? I threatened to go to court and the officers would have been liable for a daily fine so they coughed up a database as I had requested under the Act.
Having multimillionaires appointed as charir of Which? Ltd ,owned by a consumer charity, was always an odd bemusing mix as their views on pay differ from the average person's view. . The CEO pulled over £4m in just over a decade. Not bad for a charity leader. The icing on the cake was a £2.24 bonus for four members of staff set-up in 2013. to run for three years. The businesses set up lost a combined £40m before being closed down . The addition of another storey and a roof garden were probably necessary to attract and employ more staff next to Regents Park..
If anyone thinks that charities/ companies/ organisations are subject to effective scrutiny by the quangos and Government departments please take it that it is members or the public who have to be active to highlight gross milking of the entity by staff/directors/trustees.
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