Posts by Lucien Taylor

Vote to turf out remainder of Nominet board looks inevitable after .uk registry ignores reform demands

EGM2 will give the board less room to pretend they don’t understand

A small cabal of board members are refusing to stand aside. Worse, they holding themselves out as the single source of truth in putting across “the company’s view” - see @nominet Twitter. The company is owned by the members, and members clearly spelt out the company’s view in the latest EGM.

Nominet chooses civil war over compromise by rejecting ex-BBC Trust chairman

Watch the big quiet members in the background

It is an outrage having to ask the people you have fired (by EGM) to stand aside. There is no other way of looking at it, they are being propped up by those with self interest. The bigger players (outside the UK) seem to be at odds with the wider membership, the smaller players inside the UK. Very unpleasant business.

Nominet ignores advice, rejects serious change despite losing CEO, chair, half its board in membership vote

Not another consultation?

1. The Garratt Report was fiddled and board members are still setting their salaries without members’ consent (because first draft was subject to requested editorial amendments by the board)

2. The Lyons Report was ignored.

3. The .uk consultation was ignored

What is the reason behind these failures? Same people in charge - CEO Bradley has been in power for 25 years, and now Godaddy (its biggest customer) closely behind pulling strings.

Enough!

Now that half of Nominet's board has been ejected, what happens next? Let us walk you through the possibilities

Spot on - how do we get around a table?

We’ve heard a lot about all the other stakeholders that Nominet needs to take into account [true]. How do we get to talk to each other. The 7 point plan and the RAC is doomed - it is only talks and engagement and respect for the aims of Public Benefit’s 5 point plan that will resolve this.

With Nominet’s board-culling vote just days away, we speak to one man who will publicly support the management

I have a great deal of respect for Michele BUT

- Removing the executives IS a dramatic step .. MANY other efforts over several years have failed

- Yes you do get divorced after [a long sad period of failing relationship] an argument

- The double-barrelled shotgun is simply down to how the Nominet board has decided to respond to this call for an EGM (drama and panic) - a fantastic plan has been put together by publicbenefituk with some great interim directors

However, we all seem to share the same desire for change and there is always the option to sit down and talk. Hey Michele - how about offering some sort of mediation here?

Desperate Nominet chairman claims member vote to fire him would spark British government intervention

Pulling the plug on the forum was the last straw

.. and now Nominet proposes that the members communicate with each other through a central party policy of communication - where the current executive get to hear everything and the members hear nothing - Webinars, closed Twitter chat, and private meetings. The members have nothing further to discuss with this executive, they want to inhabit their own community and they want to listen to each other

Re: Citation needed

Agree. That “warning” from HMG needs to be transparent and truthful, we haven’t heard anything like that in our circles

As battle for future of .UK's Nominet draws closer, non-exec director hits a nerve with for-profit proposal

Re: This NED is testing the water

No not their Plan (I totally get that) - their Plan B IF the EGM is defeated by the board. Hopefully it won't come to it, and the EGM will succeed ..

This NED is testing the water

No board would tolerate such a scary rant proposing to turn the monopoly benefits of the .uk domain into a cash cow for a big investor.

The corporate vehicles have been established. The big players (Godaddy et al.) kept close. This NED has been let off the leash.

We’ve now heard Nominet’s plan for the company should this EGM fail. We’ve yet to hear publicbenefit’s plan, but they won’t settle for that!

Pressure builds on Nominet as members demand to know leadership's contingency plans for when they’re fired

Thanks I'm really interested in what you say - I've never heard that University of Kent bit.

My understanding is that it went from UCL (Public) to UKERNA (Public) to Nominet (Private).

I agree that the Government could/should intervene, but last time we asked they said they had "no locus to intervene"

Nope - the Government has made this clear in answers to previous questions to the Minister .. “we have no locus to intervene .. Nominet is a private company run by its members … “

Unfortunately, in 1996 the public asset of the .UK top level domain passed from public hands into private ownership without Minister’s consent.

The brand “UK” still belongs to the Exchequer - so presumably the UK Gov could decide to license the use of the brand .. but this is all well under HMG radar

An appeal to Sir Michael & Axel

I agree with this prediction of imminent defeat for the Nominet board. Nominet have for many years enjoyed three sources of power.

1. Monopoly income with no competition afforded by a UK Government asleep at the switch.

2. An ownership structure that favours the biggest.

3. The eerie collusion amongst its top ten members.

It maintains this power by:

- Campaigning against “unwanted” NEDs (I’ve been there)

- Presenting one-sided EGM election information

- Providing lavish pre-AGM lunches to a handle of friendly members

- Blackballing critics

- Agressive litigation

- NDAs

- Overstating the importance of normal security development work

Sir Michael & Axel, I remain hopeful, but why is it that Nominet board members seem to shut their eyes and ears the minute they take office?

Nominet sets the date for extraordinary meeting where members could fire CEO

Where’s Nominet’s business continuity plan?

Nominet boasts about their stability and security capabilities. Their constitution allows for the sacking of the board by its members. Do they have professional business continuity plans for such events - yes or no?

Nominet vows to freeze wages and prices, boost donations, and be more open. For many members, it’s too little, too late

Great article, beware any offers from this board

The concessions will not be granted - Nominet are masters of gaming the members. The members now have a one-shot chance to get rid of them and rebuild the pre-profiteering Nominet. It doesn’t matter what the executives say, or think, or intend to do, this is a numbers game.

Momentum builds behind campaign to fire Nominet CEO, board – though success still far from certain

Registry Advisory Council and NDAs

Nominet continue in their push-strategy to tell and not listen. Pushing ‘solutions’ on members, failing to listen to members, and shutting down the means for members to communicate with each other. Our elected NEDs are gagged by NDAs and the new Registry Advisory Council will be subjected to the same - silence for cash.

Shutting the forum was a disaster - and they did this by rounding on the last few members who could be bothered to engage with them.

Those members represented many of us.

.UK overseer Nominet abandons its own charitable foundation – and why this matters

This is no longer a Member's problem or a governance problem.

Nominet has shown again and again that the 'fig leaf' of the membership is pure fiction. The leadership does what it likes - doubling prices, using profits from a monopoly to invest in loser businesses without any accountability.

Why shouldn't a private company make money and enjoy bonuses, so long as they have won the right to operate the .uk TLD following a fair and open tender by the Government? But the fact is that Nominet just appeared out of nowhere in the mid 1990s as a private company operating .uk (which had previously been run out of UCL in the public sector). How did .uk come to be transferred out of the public sector to a private company?

The only reason it happened was because in the 1990s the government didn't realise what a valuable asset its national domain name was. It would be inconceivable in today's climate that a national TLD would be taken out of the public sector and awarded to a private company without tender, without any review of the contract, without any payment or return of profits going back into the Exchequer.

So, I agree with some of the above commentators - it's back to MPs I'm afraid.