Nominet chief tells domainers to grow up The chief executive of .uk domain manager Nominet has called for the "domaining" community to "grow up" and start looking more respectable. Lesley Cowley, speaking at the MeetDomainers conference in Manchester today, said that UK domain investors need to show "greater maturity" or risk governments riding roughshod over their …
"Respectable end of the domaining community"? Which end would that be then? It is an activity that adds costs to other businesses while creating no value in return whatsoever.
The only other group I can think of that are as parasitical as domainers are software patent lawyers and even they may be of some value now and again.
Dolphins are able to make a large range of different sounds using a special part of their anatomy called nasal air sacs.
Such air sacs are located just behind their blowhole.
Three different kinds of sound have been identified.
- The whistles, which are modulated in frequency and used usually for communication.
- The burst-pulsed sounds used also for communication.
- The clicks, which are used for echolocation. A burst of clicks is called a click train.
What this is all about is that a few people at Nominet want to make their own fortunes by floating Nominet, and so like to speak out about Domainers . It also is about the fact that big business is jealous of domainers because they want the domain names that those domainers hold, and they want them for £0 (nothing). There is a BIG difference between domaining and cybersquatting. Cybersquatting is where someone people register trade marks and then use them for their own benefits. Also one needs to look at the DRS procedure, which is grossly unfair and a tool MISused by companies to take domain names from domainers when they could not even get close to winning any trade mark infringment suit.
Well call me provincial but I think people who grab domains and then expect *thousands* of dollars for them with absolutely no calculated relationship to market demand are just prize pillocks. You, probable domainer, can get on your festering knees and suck a warm fart from my arsehole. That's suckafartfrommyarsehole.com to you, yours for only 10 billion squid.
Having spent some years in the games industry ( as a developer ), I saw that the self-imposed PEGI rating system was working well: rather than suffer a possible crackdown on adult-themed titles that might ( and unfortunately do ) find their way into the hands of minors, the responsibility was moved to the retailers to ensure that an '18' themed game be displayed and marketed appropriately.
Maybe all websites should be encouraged to display a Counterstrike logo that says, 'I don't do business with hostage takers, hence this ridiculous domain name.' or something similar - clicking on the logo would take you to a secure Nominet page showing the registration details for that domain. I haven't thought this through particularly, but I think there maybe something in it.
Cybersquatting is taking trademarks (eg viao.co.uk would be a tm of sony) and such like and offering them to their rightful owner or making money out of someone elses tm. Domaining is buying potentially valuable generic domains (laptop.co.uk) for resale.
Its the same as buying anything else which is a finite resource (eg diamonds or holidays) and selling them on.
I love it, I visited that link to the US organization (internet commerce association) and guess who sponsors it?
Domain squatters of course. Oversee.net is listed as the biggest sponsor and they are also one of the biggest domain squatters that we have.
It's good to see the domain squatting companies are being represented much as like our corporations are through our military-industrial complex.
Now who is nominet now and why should I care? :)
Cybersquatting is www.buy-viagra.com (note: "This Websense category is filtered: Parked Domain. Sites in this category may pose a security threat to network resources or private information, and are blocked by your organization.")
Damaining is www.buy-erectile-pills.com (which I think is untaken - our network seems to convert that to a Google request)
I suppose.
And presumably the legitimate angle is that when I want to set up an Internet erectile pill business, I can solicit domainers to offer you ready-made domain names to suit my business, instead of thinking of my own (www.rampant-rhomboid.com).
Whatever. Registering a domain which is appropriate to a purpose that you are not using it for, is still squatting.
It would be a good start if Nominet required compliance with its registration rules or applied stronger remedies on repeat offenders; for example, typical spammers using .uk domains provide misleading registrant information, then start spamming before the registration process is complete, and a complaint to Nominet that their domain is misregistered, indeed, that this registrant repeatedly misregisters domains subsequently used for spamming ... leads Nominet towards the toothless action of giving the registrant a relaxed 30 days to correct the registration...
Repeat offenders among web designers, 'marketing' companies, hosting companies ... and, best of all, among these, registered Nominet member registrars!!
Nominet remains toothless to a fault, never determining that a domainer or other multiple domain registrant ought to know how to register a domain... there is no greater sanction than politely asking, "Dear cherished registrant, Nominet would be most awfully grateful if you might find the time to correct your inadvertent error, it makes it difficult for any one to pursue you in the courts for spamming, if you could correct to a suitably likely individual name, we only ask for First initial + Surname, I hope this is not inconvenient, this perhaps within 30 days. Would that be okay?"
A pathetic sight. Like hearing our old PM negotiate with Dubya Bush, and also alike to seeing the taxman negotiate with giant corporations whose tax bill is too complicated to calculate, "We suspect you owe £30m, but your offer of £450k is gratefully accepted in full settlement", when they pursue small businesses for every last penny discrepancy, even worrying about penny rounding errors...
Trademark infringement is not the only problem with domaining.
It's very simple. Domain names are to be purchased directly from domain name authorities, at the standard price, by their immediate end users.
Just as, in many jurisdictions, ticket scalping for sports events is strictly illegal, it needs to be understood that any domain names purchased solely for resale will be immediately revoked, and that domaining in any form whatsoever will not be tolerated. That was the original intent of the domain name system, and that intent benefits everyone, and so it should be returned to.
The problem is that there are a vast number of desirable domain names being held awaiting a buyer. The cost of holding them is minimal. Using them for spammy websites full of sponsored ads probably covers the cost and makes the universal experience of the internet worse. Genuine businesses struggle to find a useful name having instead to use a lengthy one or resort to a non .co.uk domain.
A solution would be to scrap domain renewal fees and replace them with a bond. Suppose for each domain name you hold you have to make a deposit of, say £100. (About 10million UK domains?) Nominet costs would be covered by interest earned on those deposits. There would be no need to pay renewal fees so admin costs would be lower. The risk of "real" registrants accidentally losing names because they forgot to renew would disappear. Web designers would make sure the name was registered to and paid for by the site owner not themselves. There would be a disincentive to hold large numbers of names.
I'd like to go further and impose a "code of conduct", non compliance resulting in forfeit of domain name and bond such that some quality control could be imposed on content to get rid of sites comprised solely of sponsored ads - but devising a reasonable set of criteria would be difficult.
Not Nominet but the sunrise period for .eu domains
I have a UK limited company with domain name and company name the same (not a dictionary word but a made-up name). I attempted to register for the corresponding .eu name in the sunrise period (cost £100 IIRC), providing proof of ltd company etc. No response from them (managed by an accountancy firm, PWC) but the website showed the application as "pending". Near the end of the sunrise period it changed to "rejected" but still no communication to me as to why that might be or any opportunity to clarify or amend.
As soon as open registration ("landrush") was possible the name was assigned to a domainer and is still not being used to host a site (4 years later), I heard of another UK ltd company with exactly the same experience. It looks to me very much as if there was some kind of collusion between domainers and sunrise registrars.
It looks as if about half the .eu domains are in the hands of domainers which goes some way to explaining why uptake by "real" users is so poor.
How is investing in generic, non trademark infringing domain names any different than investing or owning real estate? There are plenty excellent plots of real estate that remain vacant with a for sale sign on the busiest streets in my city. Do you hate the owners of these properties too? The fact is that once someone registers a domain name it is theirs to do what they choose. If that means monetizing it by filling it with links or doing nothing at all.. it's their prerogative. Just like it's up to the land owner of the prime real estate downtown whether or not he wants to rent his property or just let it sit there with a huge price tag.
Get over it! Thinking of starting a business down the road?? Get your domain name today!! Maybe someone has already registered your desired domain? Why not use one of the various tools available to monitor the domain name you want? There's always the possibility that a domain name will expire and become available again. Sometimes these types of domains to go auction because more than one person/company wants it. For the most popular terms, there's always competition, which is another reason none of the crybaby comments in this thread mean anything. Be proactive and you will probably get a solid domain name you're happy with without having to spend too much money but you can expect to spend a few hundred dollars to a few thousand if you want something that's not available and not yours. use some foresight, don't wait until the day your business doors open to start searching for a proper domain name..
Why dump on domain names? Use a search engine you whiney tools. Domain names are a business like any other. Sell gold? What good is it? It's a metal. At least you can use a domain name to "create" a business from very little. Everything is speculative depending on who wants it? Get a job and a life. You all sound like socialists looking for an entitlement.
To suggest that those who are opposed to domaining "sound like socialists looking for an entitlement" is a bit ass about face isn't it? Domainers, by their own methodology, are the ones looking for an entitlement. With bona fide registrars selling .uk domains from a couple of quid a year upwards and dropcatchers and domainers catching domains and immediately putting an inflated price tag on them, I'd say those looking for an entitlement are the dropcatchers and domainers. It would be folly of course, to tar and feather everyone with the same brush, but to compare domain names to property is ludicrous when the comparison lazily glosses over the fact that no property is ever purchased for a few quid. Property speculators pay tens and hundreds of thousands for their investment, domainers usually pay a few quid for theirs. Hardly a comparison in real business terms but still I see small mindedness cling onto this weak and total irrelevant analogy. It was irrelevant 10 and 14 years ago and it is even less relevant today.
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