Remember the Nominet £100m dot-uk windfall it claims doesn't exist? Well, it's already begun For a £100m windfall that apparently doesn't exist, the release of millions of valuable .uk domain names is stirring a lot of activity in the UK's internet name space. Earlier this month, we pointed out that .uk overlord Nominet had created an entire process seemingly designed to benefit its largest members by giving …
£3.75 per domain (https://registrars.nominet.uk/uk-namespace/managing-account/payments/fee-schedule/).
Fasthosts about page states 'we keep over a million domains running smoothly', so if we assume those are all .co.uk domains (which they won't be) then this will be about £4 million. They last filed financial reports in Jan 2018 for an annual turnover of £40 million and an operating profit of £12 million if I'm reading this right.
But they can potentially recoup a chunk of those costs by auctioning off the interesting names that they're grabbing 'for their customers' if it turns out their customers still don't care.
They did, I went to check on a .uk domain I've been watching for a while (all 3 variants: .co.uk, .me.uk & .org.uk) have been owned by different people for 5+ years, and I'd have liked to grab the .uk version, so have been watching it.
Fasthosts nabbed it on the 10th of June, I suspect as part of this. It may be that they initially targeted any where all 3 variants had already been taken, viewing them as more valuable...
The introduction of .uk domains has had no perceivable additional value for UK domain owners
I reckon, apart from the racketeering of forcing to register two domains for the price of one, it also introduces unnecessary confusion into domain names. The SLDs like .co.uk, but especially, .ac.uk and .org.uk helped identify certain key non-commercial sites without people having to think up their own prefixes. It's not perfect but I don't see any advantage from moving away from it. In fact, I've seen lots of arguments in favour of similar categorising TLDs (.trust was one infamous one) that are managed solely for commercial gain and unsurprisingly adorn more and more spam. The administration of limited resources is a prime example for some degree of state control, ie. via an appointed body that may be subject to public scrutiny but not direct political influence.
The introduction of .uk domains has had no perceivable additional value for UK domain owners
Well it depends on the business and your branding.
A third-sector client uses .co.uk, .org.uk and .ac.uk to them the .uk domain permits them to apply a consistent branding across all their differing operations.
What will happen is, say, example.co.uk is a business, they would really like to grab example.uk and fail to do so, some John Lawless domain squatter managed to get it and is now asking for ££££. That business will then go and think: Why, why was I not with "Fasthosts", they would have saved me ££££!
Nominet, you know you will not be able to pull this one off again, right ?
You missed the best bit though....
Business X pays cybersquatter money for xxxx.uk domain.
In subsequent years, website traffic analysis determines the majority of traffic using the new domain was the companies own monitoring system and they received no additional customer traffic via the new domain.
Noone ever tried to flog you a corresponding .net or .org?
Earlier this year I got email out of the blue from some US domain registrar telling me the .net equivalent of my (rather obscure) .org was about to become free, and saying that for a mere $90 I could express my interest in taking part in an auction for it. I expressed my disinterest in their offer by ignoring it, and then when the domain was free used my usual UK registrar to get it for a sensible price. I suspect that had I taken part in the "auction" any other bidders would have been fake and the final price extortionate.
I got an email purporting to be from Nominet a few days ago telling me that my current registrant (Plusnet) wasn't going to be allowed to register my .co.uk domain as a .uk domain, and dd I want to sign up with someone else. I assumed it was some sort of scam, and as I'm not interested in a .uk anyway just binned it.
The automatic assumption that everything unsolicited is a scam unless readily proved otherwise is going to be quite interesting in the medium term...
I had a similar one telling me I should ask my current registrar to register the .uk because otherwise someone else might take it at the start of July. My mail server thought it was a scam and quarantined it
> The automatic assumption that everything unsolicited is a scam unless readily proved otherwise is going to be quite interesting in the medium term...
It's starting to become interesting at work. The accounts address receives invoices (PDF attachments) from companies the accounts administrator has never heard of that later turn out to be the registered name of a company we were expecting an invoice from, but the PO was made out for its trading name. It makes some interesting conversations with the supplier's credit control people.
An alternative scenario is that the purchaser is slow about passing the PO to accounts, so the invoice arrives first - and gets deleted as spam.
If the domain is "crackpots" then the .co.uk is registered through 123 - and is showing as expired last month. The .uk is also shown as registered through 123 - and was registered in 2017.
So either you registered it, or 123 registered it on your behalf and either didn't tell you, or you thought the email was spam and deleted it ;-)
re: crackpots
123-reg registered the .uk free for 2 years starting Oct-2017, on behave of their client operating the .co.uk domain.
Clearly, whoever is/was operating the .co.uk domain (Al fazed ?) has either forgotten to renew their .co.uk registration or have moved across to the .uk domain and have discarded the .co.uk domain...
Currently, the .uk domain will be held by whoever has the 123-reg admin account login details for .co.uk
Actually, you can use different registrars. What you have to do (or did, dunno if the GDPR changes affect things) is make your personal details publicly visible (via Nominet's portal, for the (eg) .co.uk domain) so that the registrar you want to use can verify that the contact details you are entering match those of the corresponding .co.uk. Once that step is passed, you can turn the privacy back on.
Not sure that's right. You can use different registrars simply by requesting a transfer out from the current one and giving them the ips tag of the new one. Where I hit a problem was trying to transfer out both a .co.uk name and the corresponding .uk variant from 123reg (who had kindly secured it for me unrequested but FOC). The .co.uk went fine the .uk one seems to be locked. (Reason for transfer - renewals can be had elsewhere for half the price of 123reg).
I can see the name at Nominet's portal but not this: _...make your personal details publicly visible (via Nominet's portal, for the (eg) .co.uk domain) so that the registrar you want to use can verify that the contact details you are entering match those of the corresponding .co.uk..._
Looks like I can pay Nominet £12 to change registrar but I prefer to pay £0
I've done it myself in the past - registering a .uk with a different registrar while leaving the .co.uk with the original (bundled with my ISP internet service). Though the Nominet portal has changed since then.
If you log into your Nominet portal, select the domain, click on Edit under the contact details - there are two tick boxes to show your name and address in Whois. I think ticking these two boxes might be what you want - then turn them off afterwards, IIRC it only took a few minutes when I did it.
That's a sore point for me.
A family member has an org.uk domain, and when Nominet was first talking about the .uk stuff they made it perfectly clear that holders of a .org.uk domain would have a priority claim over the corresponding .uk. Bollocks !
If there is no .co.uk with a claim over it, then yes. But in this case the .co.uk was in use - and the **** has just registered the .uk in the last few days :-( However, what happens if the .co.uk holder doesn't claim the .uk is simple - at some point it becomes publicly available and the holder of the .org.uk has to fight with everyone else over it, and seemingly fight against registrars who've been given a weeks head start. So in this case, X gets foo.uk if they want it, while Y is actively prevented from registering it. Y may not even get to register it when X's reservation ends - so much for having priority call on it.
I hope someone at Nominet needs the Fire Brigade, sorry, Fire and Rescue Service, to put out the burning in their ears. But since it seems Nominet have been watching Icann and noting how it's done, I doubt anyone will care.
They really have changed the rules several times - including changing previously announced rules, such as the reservation on .uk domains was supposed to end on Monday 10th June.
Email just in:
"In order to extend the protection period for you, 1&1 IONOS has registered all of the .uk domain names, which you have not already secured yourself. This will ensure that your .uk domain name will not be registered by anyone except you until 2020."
Hmm - I have two domains with ionos - but never got any email from them about this.
I just checked - and for one of the two they have registered the .UK address (the .com and .net are both registered with godaddy) - while ignoring the other.
So, it seems they are only registering domains where multiple versions have been registered.
Unless they are prioritising the domain registration.....
Domain Whois record
Queried whois.nic.uk with "fc.uk"...
Domain name:
fc.uk
Data validation:
Nominet was able to match the registrant's name and address against a 3rd party data source on 12-Dec-2017
Registrar:
Corporation Service Company (UK) Limited [Tag = CSC-CORP-DOMAINS]
URL: http://www.cscprotectsbrands.com
Relevant dates:
Registered on: 10-Jun-2014
Expiry date: 10-Jun-2020
Last updated: 04-Jun-2019
Registration status:
Registered until expiry date.
Name servers:
dns1.cscdns.net
dns2.cscdns.net
WHOIS lookup made at 14:40:17 24-Jun-2019
-- end --
This post has been deleted by its author
Why is anyone surprised?
The top brass at nominet knew the golden egg laying goose had a limited life span, so had a last big winner spin while the going was good, to fund diversifying into other areas.
There was a time when registries figured that numerous gtld's entering the market would make a pretty penny, until reality kicked in, that it was really only them who thought .horse, .vodka or .movie was a must have suffix - most people just didn't give a fuck.
So, what better ploy than to effectively hold .co.uk registrants to ransom in an attempt to force their hand at owning the 'new shorter smarter bollocks statement domain'?
Fail to register and you could lose your rights!
Such was the outcry over this, that 5 years was given to allow registrants to take up their new shorter suffix - an entire 3 characters.
Yep, this is business and in the grand scheme of things, whatever - you knew it was coming, did you REALLY think nominet cared for anything other than money? Surely not, they care a lot about all sorts of positive 'for the public good' stuff. Honest they do. Just ask the former Nominet Trust....
This post has been deleted by its author
So we are a Nominet Member, we never received anything from Nominet regarding the pre reg period so when approached by one of our clients we had to say he would have to use another supplier. He duly did and today received an email from Godaddy informing him that the domain was now in auction and to get it he would have to bid, on examination of the domain it failed Nominet's criteria as the data could not be validated. I am guessing that Godaddy registered this domain and are now selling it!!
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
