UK's internet registry prepares a £100m windfall for its board members – and everyone else will pay for it Nominet, the operator of the dot-UK domain-name registry, has been accused of designing a scheme to give its largest members a £100m payday. On July 8 this year, more than three million unregistered .uk domains – including household brands from Mars.uk, Heinz.uk, and Maltesers.uk to Colgate.uk and Lipton.uk – will be released …
I wish.
Back in 2013, I got messed around with by them over their privacy policies, or lack thereof. They'd arbitrarilly decide sites were commercial, and remove privacy protections, supposedly 'for the good of the visitor', because if I have a 'subscribe for emails when there's new posts', or links to my book for sale on amazon, they really need my home address, especially one that's been run through a bunch of databases to 'verify' it. Oh yeah, because they needed to verify things, because a legally recognized uk pseudonym (done to actually uniquely identify me, rather than hide me, and under which I do a lot of my business) was not acceptable.
I didn't find anyone to appeal to, but after making enough noise that the Guardian got involved, and Jimmy Wales started smacking them around a bit on Twitter, they relented that they'd hide my home details. Alas it'd been public for a day before I could change the address to a PO Box, because their system wouldn't let me change it before the deadline - even sent their director a video showing that) but I was forced to move, because i've been the target of SWATing before, from the likes of Jeremy Hammond (who is still in prison for another year or two) and others, so yeah, I don't want my home address out there. ICO didn't give a toss then. Luckily, GDPR has helped push it to where ti should have been.
but no, no-one to complain to.
Sabroni, ideally we shouldn't - but in practice you will find there is very little anyone can actually do about it.
The main reason why Western cheeses talk so much about corruption in other countries is that, in our countries, corruption has been legalized and institutionalized.
And in spirit, it is. Legally, however, it's an organization that has been given a supported monopoly because that's pretty much the only way to run a registry that has decided on the system, not the market leaders. Their decision just happens to look like one that was set up by collusion. So an investigation into the registrars would likely come to the conclusion that they're fine, and an investigation into the registry would say that they have the right to set policies such that they get a bunch of money and then pay that money to themselves. There really should be some method for calling their motives into question or removing them entirely, but I don't think there is. Unless there's a class of law I don't know about that says "Institutions must not abuse their market position", they'll probably get off in that valley between letter and spirit of the law.
My registrar "gifted" me bentasker.uk for a year (or perhaps it was 2) when they first launched, because I've got bentasker.co.uk.
Looking in the control panel now it's £8 a year to renew. Which isn't a lot of money, but it is money that shouldn't need to be spent on a domain that might come in conflict with my "proper" domain and only exists because Nominet are a bunch of self-interested money grubbing $#!?'s that seem determined to replicate the worst aspects of ICAAN.
.co.uk hit the 10 million milestone back in 2012, so if you assume about 1/4 of those were "gifted" the .uk and now auto-renew at £8/year that's an additional £20 million quid being paid out, every year, for no good reason.
Just like ICAAN with the gTLD's, the entire offering depends on fear of the new domain coming into conflict with the established one. And, to be honest, it's no real surprise seeing such a low approach coming out of Nominet - remember they were also the ones who turned off people's WHOIS privacy without advance notice based on a very spurious assessment that those sites were commercial, simply because they were carrying ads.
It is interesting to ask the question: did 123-reg see this coming two plus years back?
Because clearly if you are a user of 123-reg you have been saved from Nominet(UK)'s scheme.
With my clients it has enabled me to hold gentle discussions about domain names so that this year they can take an informed decision as to whether to actively surrender the .uk domain or keep it (for now) and pay the bill.
So, 123-Reg did it too?
My registrar in this case is Heart Internet - thought that's basically the same company as 123 Reg, in the sense that they were both part of HEG, and are now both owned by GoDaddy.
I wonder if all the various GoDaddy ofshoots gave their customers the same "offer"?
To me, it seems that the entire system was specifically created to be gamed - but only by those in charge.
Isn't it time that Nominet's status as a non-profit be put into question ? If you have a non-profit that hires an acquisition officer, then I think that non-profit has too much money for its own good.
A not-for-profit is a great business model. No shareholders and all excess money has to be 'absorbed' by executive salaries, posh headquarters and fancy new toys.
It could, obviously, be used to lower customer prices, but that is quite a dangerous precedent and only done once the above profit eaters have been exhausted to the point of literal embarrassment. Even then you can just appoint a new chairman who feels less easily embarrassed.
"Isn't it time that Nominet's status as a non-profit be put into question "
Not for profit simply means doesn't pay dividends, and doesn't intend to run a profit.
If it where an actual "good cause" it would be a charity, be tax exempt and have a lot more regulation.
And yes, it is suitable as a self-enriching parasite, run by the types of people who thrive in that environment. Things like dumping the charitable foundation point towards nominet moving towards the darkside.
"The key challenge for Nominet is to ensure the integrity and resilience of our registration systems, both for these names and for names registered in the normal course of business."
As the BOFH might say, eau de rat is in the air. Nominet are essentially allowing cybersquatting for profit, so long as their hand picked squatters get the domain names and then promptly sell them for a profit to the companies that should already technically own them, and seeing as domain name registrars have a monopoly over their namespace it's not like you can go elsewhere.
Nominet should never have introduced the new flat namespace in the first place, it really was nothing more than a way for them to print money.
I always thought that the .uk’s hierarchical namespace was a *good* thing, and something which many other ccTLDs sadly lack: it prevents impersonation of .gov.uk, .ac.uk, nhs.uk domains, for example, as well as allowing the likes of Bloggs Business and Bloggs Charity to not to have to fight for the same domain name.
"Nominet should never have introduced the new flat namespace in the first place, it really was nothing more than a way for them to print money."
Yes... My guess is that while the introduction of .uk was a way for them to print money, not enough of it was printed because not enough owners of existing .uk domains took up the flat equivalent. It didn't work well enough in the money printing aim, so now they're doing this.
Also, wasn't there a problem quite a long time back with at least one registrar whereby if someone checked for the existence of a domain, they'd go ahead and register it - so the person searching could then not do so anywhere else? This is surely making that an option again.
In my mind, a country should either do a purely third-level domain structure or a purely second level. Mixing them is asking for trouble. The main reasons for choosing to do only second level domains are to attract international purchases (for example, randomstartup.co.io wouldn't catch on as well as randomstartup.io) and to simplify the categorization of sites (for example, whether a personal site gets placed in .me.uk or .org.uk or .co.uk, all of which I've seen). The third level doesn't give those benefits, but clearly classifies the sites. Doing both results in a patchwork mess where domain impersonation is made far too easy.
... wasn't there a problem quite a long time back with at least one registrar whereby if someone checked for the existence of a domain, they'd go ahead and register it - so the person searching could then not do so anywhere else? ...
Yes, I do recall that, although I don't recall whether it was GoDaddy or NetSol.
Definitely a thing, though.
"On July 8 this year, more than three million unregistered .uk domains – including household brands from Mars.uk, Heinz.uk, and Maltesers.uk to Colgate.uk and Lipton.uk – will be released to the general public to purchase."
It'd be interesting to know whether those big companies like Mars, Kraft, Colgate and Unilever haven't bothered registering their .uk domains because they're unaware, or simply because they have faith in their legal departments and refuse to be robbed (again, think .biz, .info, .eu etc). Presumably anyone deciding to register heinz.uk better have a damn good reason to have it, and woe betide them if they do anything with it that could even be suggested to be passing off on Heinz's brand otherwise they'll end up in court.
ICANN was captured by the registry/registrar lobby, and then it sat back while they grabbed all their clients expiring names for themselves and then auctioned them off (instead of the proper action of beling deleted and returning to the unregged pool).
Nominet = 2nd verse, same as the first.
Offical DNS structure gets raped but then again you can always make your own, DNS is just a database of names and IP address, it only needs to be recognised by the people you want to find you for it to become offical.
If the existing structure's management is stupid enough not to keep it's house in order then there is nothing to stop a new structure replacing it, one built upon the original values of the the internet and less like the whore that the "Official" internet has become
Riiiiight. How exactly are we to coordinate the replacement of the .uk registry if the U.K. government doesn't want us to do so? Because that will require either convincing all the ISPs to go along with us, convincing the root servers to change their records, or every citizen who uses the internet to perform a manual configuration check. Adding an entry to the DNS for a small group is doable though pointless, but replacing an existing one or adding a replacement without external support will not be feasible.
no need to replace .uk but if you really wanted to then your replacment DNS server could but that would make it less likely to be accomdated by the root servers that you feel are essential for DNS to work.
as to "adding a replacement without external support will not be feasible", if for example google's DNS started resolving a new ".GB" then everyone using their servers for DNS resolution would not even notice the change. Same for openDNS or any other DNS that is trusted enough to have an impact.
So if someone decided to make for example a zero advertising DNS authority then given the number of ad-blockers in use it might be popular enough for the control of DNS to pass out of the current hands, something that google themselves might consider
You're of the belief that Google will set up an anti-advertising DNS system? Well, I can't argue with that.
I don't think the root servers are required for a DNS system. I think they are required for a DNS system that gets used by the general public. You're trying to get something that replaces .uk or at least comes to dominate it so the .uk people don't have any power. That requires convincing people to get domains in your .gb or whatever new DNS space, which requires users to be able to access it. Not just users who are willing and know how to change their DNS settings, but users in general. Somehow, you think that's a possibility. I'll note that the first comment implied that it would be a utopian decentralized dream, and now the suggestion has changed to getting openDNS or Google to lend their weight, which isn't going to happen.
I don't think the root servers are required for a DNS system. I think they are required for a DNS system that gets used by the general public.
It's all a trust thing. Or in this case, more of an anti-trust thing. The root servers shouldn't necessarily be used by joe.public unless their DNS can't find it in their resolver list. Then there's some signing to establish some form of additional trust, or sell more certs.
But it's also one of those thorny issue that's long been discussed. In theory, anyone can set up a resolver and try to convince people to use it. If it clashes with the official ones, that may cause problems.. but supposing some organisation decided to offer a free, privacy enhanced & light-weight web browser and included alt-nameservers in the distro, it would work.. And it's been attempted in the past, but not really gained much traction. It's one of those splits that ops types consider though, and actions like Nominets may just make people look more seriously at doing it. Obvious candidates to create a new walled garden would be the usual suspects, MS, Google, Apple etc give or take anti-trust and bundling issues.
Of course that's possible. And it's been attempted before. I know of only one system at all like that that has buy-in, that being Tor's onion addresses (added privacy on that one, but an alternate way of naming sites). The reason: people don't want to fragment the internet when they don't have a good reason. The goal of changing the DNS system in this case is to reduce the power held by the operators and registrars of the .uk domains, but if it only works on a privacy-focused browser, or if a user changes some configuration settings, or if Google or Apple gets taken over by a mind control system and decides to do something diametrically opposed to all their previous actions, it won't succeed. Nontechnical users won't be able to access a new site in their favorite browser or operating system without doing some work they don't want or know how to do. Companies won't see the point in reserving a new domain name. Semitechnical users who could set this up won't have any domains they care about, so they won't bother adding the domain to their systems. Small organizations won't see the point in reserving a new domain name. Technical people who clearly know what they're doing will set it up, and never use it because only a few people have chosen to put domains there, the rest having chosen that the .uk people aren't that bad or having just moved to a different TLD that actually exists in the normal internet.
@doublelayer what you are trying to argue is that change is not possible when the reality is quite the opposite, as you have finally admitted.
As to antiADs, many web users already employ blocking tools as AD are typically not the reason they paid for their internet connection. A DNS resolver who promises not to resolve dodgy/AD sites saves the need for additional blocking tools that are currently being targetted by google etc. Yes the Ads can use a IP instead but there are already tools like pihole handl this, more evidence that people are sick of being abused, potentially sick enough to want in on an internet that caters to their desires rather than for corporate profit.
As has been already pointed out it is all about trust and increasingly even the low level users are becoming aware of the total disregard for their privacy and desires.
Technically it is easy to bypass the "offical" DNS completely and that is something that these grabbers should consider. Companies pay them to get users to their sites but if DNS becomes fragmented then there goes their business.
You seem to be misunderstanding or misstating my points. I do not contend that change is impossible. I contend that change of the type suggested is infeasible. I do not contend that anti-ad technology is impossible, unpopular, or the like. I contend that Google will not help with it. We seem to disagree strongly about the ease with which users can be convinced to change their DNS settings, and the enthusiasm for such a system on the part of businesses and other site operators. Your counterpoints to mine do not address this, unfortunately.
That is quite true. In addition, you sometimes end up with situations where someone sues another someone over their domain name and it is hard to tell who should have the rights to it. For example, a year ago, someone who had the domain france.com which was used to organize tourism to France was sued by the French government, who wanted it for I don't really know why. You could make an argument that the tourism guy didn't have the right to get the domain in the first place because France already had the name, or that France didn't have the right to take it from him after he had been using it. Who is right?
"Who is right?"
Dunno about right, but generally these things go to the sovereign nation. It's got more favors to call in :D
There have been "professional" cybersquatters who have gone the length to set up a small business with the same name as the target. The idea is to make the cost of paying their ransom cheaper than the potential legal costs.
So who gets queen.uk? Someone looking to use names like drag.queen.uk?
More seriously, isn't this likely to lead to confusion, and opportunities for fraud? In the past when I see names like gov.uk and nhs.uk, I can be reasonably sure of who they are. That's going to become blurred when you start getting phishing from hmrc.uk.
Since basically no-one wanted these new TLDs apart from the DNS registrars who are set to make an absolute killing off companies that now need to buy 2 domain names instead of 1... yes.
This whole thing was just cooked up so that they could take an extra 8 quid off every company in the country every year, any serious argument levelled against the plan had to be ignored completely.
Nominet could choose to simply keep the 2nd level .uk domains in reserved / blocked status for the 3rd level .co.uk registrants who were eligible to claim the .uk domain, but where's the money in that? Nominet won't just profit from the registration fees. The DRS is the .UK equivalent of the UDRP, the domain dispute resolution procedure which applies to .com and many other TLDs. While UDRPs are filed with 3rd party arbiters like WIPO, rather than with the registry, .UK DRS disputes are filed directly with Nominet... and so it's the registry itself which is collecting the fees from every complaint. If you aren't flustered by bothersome ethical issues, it's a time-tested strategy-- create the problem, offer the solution.
Nominet could choose to simply keep the 2nd level .uk domains in reserved / blocked status for the 3rd level .co.uk registrants who were eligible to claim the .uk domain, but where's the money in that?
Also, it would be "somewhat unfair" to others.
I am in the position of having a .org.uk domain (hence posting as AC) - and when the .uk shakedown was being talked up, it was said that holders of a .org.uk domain would have some rights over the corresponding .uk name.
But, they lied - yes I think lie is an appropriate word to account for the difference between what they said was going to happen and what they actually implemented. For the .org.uk domain in question has no rights - the holder of the matching .co.uk domain has the rights over the .uk even though they've not taken up that right in the 5 years they've had it. So I have to wait until the .uk domain is made generally available and fight with everyone else to get it. TBH I'm not that bothered if I don't get it, but it's one of the cases Nominet conveniently ignores - and they've ignored my emails about it.
What would be fairer would be if when the initial sunset period was over, those with a second choice right (like me) got a short period to register, then 3rd choice, until there are no holders of a domain with any "rights" - and then it became publicly available. But that would be too logical and customer focussed for Nominet.
Nominet scare mongering enterprises to one side. Are domains really still a thing given that 99% of Joe public search for content, click through from social media etc. It's no coincidence that a good proportion of TV ads in the UK (at least) no longer display a web address - instead they just say "search somekeyword".
I'd say last ditch effort by nominet to generate some revenue here - not sure what they plan to do next when it runs out.
I'm confused. I recalled the deadline as being 10 June which seems to be confirmed here: https://www.nominet.uk/email-to-uk-rights-holders/ "the reservation will last until 10 June 2019."
This ElReg article refers to 8 June so I thought I'd better check as I still have a handful of .co.uk names without the corresponding .uk
Frankly I think the whole bare .uk scheme is a scam, I'm registering the variants for a year on a defensive basis but not routing them to a web site or using them at all.
Go to https://www.nominet.uk/ and there's a countdown clock showing 18 days left (as at 6/6/19) saying "You may have a reserved .uk domain. The clock is ticking, register it today before someone else can".
Further searching finds https://www.theukdomain.uk/do-i-have-uk-rights/ "If you own a .co.uk, .org.uk, .me.uk, .net.uk, .plc.uk, or ltd.uk domain, the matching .uk domain may have been reserved for you until 25 June 2019 and released to the open market on 1 July (what's the status of the names for the intervening week I wonder).
I used to use 123reg and some time ago, without asking, they "reserved" some bare .uk name variants responding to the .co.uk registrations I held with them. Since then I moved almost everything away from 123 to somewhere that does uk names for half the price, has better customer service (as anyone who's used 123reg will know, that's easily done) and a better UI. I had tried to move the bare .uk names 123 hold but I get an error when I try to transfer out...
With some other .co.uk names I held elsewhere it was going to cost about £8 to buy the bare .uk variant so I went looking and found 123reg were offering first year registration for 99p so I clicked that, it went into the shopping basket at £11.99 (inc VAT). Anyone know where to go to register them on the cheap?
@J G Harston
Yes the .co.uk names for most "household names" do already exist. The point of the article is that if they don't register the corresponding .uk (without .co) very soon there's a risk someone else will and may use it to the disadvantage of the registrant of the .co.uk name.
Nominet's attitude to that risk is that if a third party were to use a the .uk equivalent of a .co.uk name to the disadvantage of the .co.uk name owner, it would be a breach of Nominet's T&C. What they gloss over is that their Dispute Resolution Service costs £200 for mediation, if that fails you can get an expert decision for £750 and if you don't like the result an appeal costs a further £3,000 taking the potential total to £3950 +VAT.
If a third party had registered mars.uk and was selling sweets Mars Inc lawyers would be on the case in the twinkling of an eye (and probably resort to the courts at much higher potential legal costs than Nominet's DRS if mars.uk was being used by a third party for any purpose whatsoever).
The real risk in this situation is to small businesses. They are less likely to be aware of the issue so may not have registered the .uk name variants. They are less able to fund a legal battle should the need arise.
Some of the examples listed in the ElReg article, including mars.uk, have been registered (presumably by the eponymous confectionery manufacturer). The fact that many of the .uk registrations (including at time of writing mars.uk) don't take you to a functioning web site seems to me to be a recognition by the holders of those names that they are worthless but need to be held to prevent anyone else getting them.
You might think: why not route mars.uk to the functioning web site at mars.co.uk The reason is that once you've done that the name will get "known" possibly by some search engines, possibly by some users of that web site. That means that you're committed to paying the annual renewal for ever. Not a problem for Mars Inc but for a small business, perhaps protecting a few brand names and domain name variants (like multi-word names with and without hyphens between words) the opportunity to save even a few tens of pounds is sometimes welcome.
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