DomainLore Blog.uk domain aftermarket and .uk drop catching plus anything that goes…

Dear Nominet,

Re: Domain expiry policy feedback

(Blog readers: if you are not aware what it is all about, check these proposed policy changes @ http://www.nominet.org.uk/policy/issuegroups/current/domainexpirypolicy/)

I believe that some suggestions in the draft recommendations are opportunistic and fundamentally wrong. A lot of Nominet members and registrars, myself included, are raising their eye brows and expressing concern on the suggested self-regulatory ‘innovations’ discussed in the draft.

That is the issue of granting registrars with extreme powers not merely to use domains between pending renewal and cancellation date, but to unprecedentedly gift complete ownership of not renewed domains to the registrars.

In my public understanding, it has always been a fundamental operating principle of Nominet, that the domain registration contract between registrant and the Registry is a contract between two parties – a customer and a service provider, and that contract has been polished for years from the start of the .uk Registry, to be a flawless agreement protecting interests for both contracted parties. The registrars have always been intermediary agents of the registry, governed in large by the equal policies the Registry mandates.

Now, it is suggested to derange all this achieved stability, by giving the Registry agents ultimate authority to write their own agreements and set their own terms in relation to their customer`s domain registrations.

I can not understand how these dramatic changes, lobbied by a handful of concerned registrars (with some present on Nominet board) are so smoothly pushed forward without careful consideration for the conflicts of interests of the lobbyists and for the far-sighted consequences to the Registry.

I saw references in support of these changes among the words of ‘innovation within the industry’, ‘new business models’ and ‘best international practices’.

Apparently, ‘international’ here is nothing more than ‘Verisign/ICANN’ infamous practices of letting registrars reposses and auction expired gTLD domains. It is unknown if Nominet honestly believes for these practices to be ‘best’, whether based largely on the lobbyist`s input, but among the domain registrants themselves, these practices are considered to be the ‘worst’. Verisign has made a number of dire decisions in it’s history (including disastrous SiteFinder, fortunately taken down quickly after a volume of lawsuits), but Nominet is regarded as a registry with much better integrity and level of service than Verisign. It would be sad to see Nominet blindly following it’s ‘international cousin’ without valuing and preserving it’s own goodwill.

Based on the ‘international’ experience, this unregulated practice will inevitably result in a ‘wild west’ phase, the very same way ‘drop catching’ once did. It took years for drop catching to came through it to finally establish and regulate itself. Letting registrars control expired domain ownerships will put .uk Registry through another ‘wild west’ decade. These recommendations appear ill-timed and with potentially irreparable consequences for the Registry.

There are reported cases of .uk registrars already abusing current terms of service, by selling domain ownerships and passing control of the domain name to new customers within their own registrar system. The actual ownership was not changed, as that would not be technically possible under existing regulations, however unscrupulous registrars have already found ways to illicitly profit from something their customers entrusted them with. It is hard to imagine what happens, once these same registrars obtain powers to administer expired domain names the way they please.

If the issue group likes to learn from ‘international best practices’, then it should take into the account what happened when some of .com/.net registrars were adjusting domain`s grace periods down manually with the intent of repossessing the domain for resale earlier than allowed. While this was technically against ICANN guidelines, ICANN had a hard time enforcing its rules on registrars.

Nominet is now choosing whether to open the same can of worms and it is unknown why Nominet would want to sabotage the integrity (and perceived public trust-worthiness) of the .uk Registry just for the sake of letting few registrars earn some extra profit? Their business is firmly built on domain registration services (with viable profit margins) and a plethora of supplement services (such as email, hosting, certificates..etc — with generous profit margins). Repossessing domain names from their customers is fundamentally wrong because registrars do not incur any losses when their customer does not renew. They do not have to take domains back from the customer to recover any losses, because, comparing to usual ‘repossession’, the customer *has not failed to pay what he owed*. Since all domain names are paid upfront and leased directly from the Registry it is only right to return them back to the Registry at the lease end when the customer decides to end his subscription. If there is an intermediary free to dictate their own terms, it will damage customer trust and experience. That would seem especially wrong, when the domain name was not renewed by accident and it is late discovered by the customer that it`s registrar decided domain`s fate by it`s own will. Contrary, when the domain name is cancelled and deleted, it results in a concluded ‘natural life cycle’, which is far less prone to complaints, disputes and discontent.

Nominet in it’s own words says to be determined with it`s policies to ‘support the development of new business models whilst ensuring registrants’ expectations are met’. However, what is proposed is simply a destruction of existing business models for registrants who service deleting domain names and recycling their businesses in favour of a few large registrars (the lobbyists, apparently). Hardly any innovation and hardly support for the UK economy — many of the large .uk registrars are foreign-owned, whilst most domain-catching registrars are small businesses established in the UK. Their local economy contribution should not be underestimated and disregarded.

To summarise my somewhat lengthy input, I believe that registrars should not be allowed to self-regulate because it will be unbearably lucrative for them not to practice abuse and numerous customer cheating options, whether to facilitate domain non-renewal, shill bidding fraud during the auction (as in snapnames example) or in other ‘innovative’ ways.

Yours sincerely,
Denys

Domain catcher since 2005 and founder of DomainLore.co.uk

In the last couple of days someone has placed a number of advanced bids for domain names containing trademark terms. I haven’t noticed them immediately before being notified by one of the members. Previously, I would have just removed them, as it would be against DomainLore policy to run auctions for trademarked domains.

This time, however, it made me think that often people seem to be overreacting when they recognise a well-known brand in the domain name. Would TM presence necessary mean everyone must keep miles away from such domain names?

Could there be a legitimate interest from these bidders? Does DomainLore need to function as a third-party arbiter or should allow for the interested party to leave bids for whatever they think is appropriate, but simply continue to restrict domains containing trademarks from being listed in public auctions. Any interested catcher can make their own grown-up decision, whether to catch them to fulfill the request of interested bidder, or keep away and ignore due to their personal judgments.

And that is what I’ve decided to implement with ‘private catch direct sales’. A number of people has expressed their concerns on this subject and DomainLore policy. Today I wrote extended reply to one of them and I am publishing it here to ease anyone`s else concerns.