.uk registry operator Nominet responds to renewed criticism – by silencing its critics
- Reference: 1600846565
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/23/nominet_internal_forum_shut_down/
- Source link:
Speaking at Nominet’s annual general meeting (AGM) on Tuesday morning, the organisation’s CEO Russell Haworth [1]shocked members by announcing he was shutting down its internal web forum – the only means of independent communication between members – effective immediately.
The meeting was held virtually, and members were communicating with one another on the forum at the time, including putting together a list of questions to ask the Nominet board and executive team during the Q&A portion of the AGM... when it suddenly went dead.
In a sign of just how dysfunctional the relationship has become between Nominet and its members, Haworth clearly relished the moment.
“As a member organisation, we rely on the engagement, insight and support of our members,” he said. “Robust multi-stakeholder discussions and debates are a critical part of what we do and member voices are key.”
He went on: “However, I believe we will benefit from resetting our relationship with a small minority of members. It is important the voices of a few are heard but not to the exclusion of the many… the forum is dominated by a handful of posters and it’s increasingly become aggressive and hostile, not least toward our staff… we don’t feel as though we need a Nominet forum. So with immediate effect we are closing it down.”
In its place, Haworth suggested occasional Zoom calls, arranged and run by Nominet, “so we can interact on key issues that are important to you and engage in constructive dialogue.”
Information control
Aside from the fact Nominet has faced [2]severe criticism in the past for holding meetings to which it only invited and briefed a select few companies in order to push ideas it knew other members would oppose, the Nominet message board was the only form of direct public communication that members had with themselves and their organisation after the company shut down its mailing lists in preference to the online forum.
And just for good measure, Nominet then used this year’s virtual AGM, something its chairman said at the start of the meeting was legally allowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to vote to run all future AGM as virtual meetings, thereby removing the ability of members to make their views known in future.
Thanks to a decision pushed by Haworth in 2017, members can also no longer rely on reading board-of-directors minutes and reports to find out what the organisation is doing because it has [3]stopped sharing them online.
What makes the decision to kill any form of independent communication that much worse, however, is the fact that recent criticism leveled at Nominet has been entirely justified.
In recent weeks, it has been accused of repeatedly failing in its job as custodian of the .uk space, and of putting its commercial interests ahead of those of its members and the broader UK public. Last week, the organisation was [4]forced to admit it had wrongly calculated election results for the past two years yet continues to refuse to provide any more details.
That same week, the illicit sale of valuable domain names by the second largest retailer of .uk names, Fasthosts, which coincidentally supplies Nominet with around half of its annual revenue, was [5]exposed yet Nominet refused to carry out an investigation.
All about the money
The week before that, Nominet was [6]forced to backtrack on a plan to take over the resale market for .uk names after a member revolt. The plan would have brought the company an extra £4m a year; its consultation paper that pushed the approach was [7]fundamentally flawed and may also have undermined its legal status as a non-profit member organisation.
The week before that, Nominet was accused of [8]actively misleading British punters by sending emails warning them about the need to renew domain names they never ordered and didn’t want.
And earlier this month, Nominet’s annual report revealed that the organisation continues to take money from the UK registry business, over which it holds a monopoly, and pump it into failed efforts to enter commercial markets, loaning £4.1m to prop up those plans while at the same time increasing executive and director pay by double-digit percentages. CEO Haworth was awarded a 30 per cent pay rise to £593,000.
Also in that report, Nominet acknowledged in a single line of text that it was abandoning its multi-year effort to break into the spectrum management and autonomous vehicles markets; an effort it had wasted millions on.
In these actions, many members saw an executive team and board of directors that has become increasingly unaccountable for its actions, and so took to Nominet’s internal forum to raise their concerns as well as ask for explanations from staff.
With the AGM coming up, many Nominet members who do not normally engage with the organisation took to the message board where they heard about many of these issues for the first time.
As such, the forum was literally the last line for members to raise issues within what remains, legally, a member-based non-profit organisation.
And, in the clearest possible way, the management made plain how they feel about being held accountable for their actions: by shutting it down. ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
[1] https://youtu.be/Y7du-_kOW8E?t=1287
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/05/nominet_domain_windfall/?page=1
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2017/08/17/uks_internet_operator_nominet_goes_dark/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/17/dot_uk_nominet_elections/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/17/dot_uk_domain_sales/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/01/nominet_uk_domain_expiration/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/22/nominet_uk_addresses/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/03/nominet_million_dot_uk_domains/
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I don't think it's answerable to government. It's just another non-profit entity that has been given a role, but it's not really answerable for anything other than "do the .uk domain name TLDs work?".
This is how things operate... it's basically a private company, technically a "profit with a purpose" company, under the guise of a non-profit, doing what an official government authority should really be doing.
It's answerable only to its shareholders, like any other company, unless it's doing something illegal.
Which is exactly the problem with private companies fulfilling necessary functional roles in infrastructure like the Internet.
Yes, but the members are the shareholders, and they are not answering to them.
As you say, it's answerable to its members and the members have an opportunity to vote on the board at the next AGM. They also have the right to propose their own candidates as replacements for the board. Of all the companies in the UK it's harder to think of any that have a better ability to get together online behind the managements back to do just that.
But should this really be a government function? On the whole I think that the less governments have their hands on the net the better.
But should this really be a government function? On the whole I think that the less governments have their hands on the net the better.
It always feels a bit strange to have discussions about how things should be run. In an ideal world, no-one would die of cancer and elderly people wouldn't gradually have their minds destroyed.
The fact of the matter is that we peasants have only marginally more influence over the running of Nominet as we do over these things. All we can do is hope for the best of a bad deal in a highly constrained range of options controlled by numerous powerful vested interests.
The Government isn't going to do anything about Nominet's corporate structure unless it reaches the front page of the Daily Mail, and even then they would probably just nationalize it and put Baroness Harding in charge.
> they would probably just nationalize it and put Baroness Harding in charge.
If it keeps her away from other things I'd consider it a win.
Re: Meh
Someone please create a No 10 Petition to investigate corruption at Nominet.
Wow
I must admit, that is a rather impressive display of power excercised. Especially taking down the forum mid-call.
Not necessarily wise, yet impressive.
"legally, a member-based non-profit organisation"
But in reality, it is a de facto dictatorship.
The members had best organize, and do it quickly, or they are going to be fucked.
Re: "legally, a member-based non-profit organisation"
The problem with this is that members make very little profit from each domain name and pass costs onto the end user.
So it is the end user and UK brands/business who are the most fucked as a result of this, not the members.
Re: "legally, a member-based non-profit organisation"
After reading the Wikipedia entry on nominet, I see no legal bar to the unhappy members walking away and starting their own not for profit using .GB.
I'll chip in with a couple of quid if they incorporate a few rules to prevent this kind of thing.
Re: "legally, a member-based non-profit organisation"
There is only one problem with .gb - and that is Northern Ireland...
(no, I'm not trying to start a discussion about recent politics and would rather not see it happen as a reply to this post...)
Re: "legally, a member-based non-profit organisation"
There is only one problem with .gb - and that is Northern Ireland..
And I've heard that the SNP are really looking forward to the May 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, a few months after a likely disastrous Westminster-driven Brexit adds a few super-tankers worth of petrol to the flames of Scottish independence.
Perhaps .lb - Little Britain - would work.
Re: "legally, a member-based non-profit organisation"
Is he applying for the role of Keir Starmer?
Reason: Covid
Covid will and has been used as an excuse for so many things - rightly or wrongly.
Re: Reason: Covid
Why not just add in Brexit, Trump and Nazi Germany and they can then claim a full house on their bullshit bingo card.
Nominet has been broken for many, many years. No proper domain privacy options, terrible customer service, they seem to think that being an official registrar makes them untouchable. Unfortunately they seem to be right. Best option is not to bother registering .*.uk names at all and find an alternative that is more pleasant to deal with.
It’s always important for us to understand your views. That's why we’re shutting them down
well, the most important thing is this: you can't claim they're inconsistent! :D
In its place, Haworth suggested occasional Zoom calls
presumably, those awkward questions put across zoom calls will be available for the world to see and consider, as those awkward questions previously put forward on the forum?!
...
oh, really?
So pass a resolution to clear the board, and put in new people.
It'll get voted down...
As the minority of the votes are controlled by Nominet and the biggest domain registrars.
Presumably the posts published on the Nominet forum remain the property of the poster, why not just set up a new forum and republish everything to date, thereby moving the content and forum beyond the control of the board. Data subject access request from each member should do the trick if they refuse to provide a full copy.
Once the paying members have their own forum they can organise, after all nominet doesnt own anything but "*.UK". and ".GB" for example as has already been posted here as an alternative
I have noticed the same behaviour shown by Nominet in other "UK Insistutions", where IMHO the board have set themselves up with benefits and pensions whilst the paying members were looking the other way. This IMHO is what the grab is all about, the nominet board have been allowed to have too much power without oversight and the result is that the paying members have not noticed that they have been systimatically disenfranched over years. The members might be able to fight the grab but it is likely to be both cheaper and more reliable to just take you ball back and start your own game without the leeches.
ICO
The Information Commissioners Office, or another suitable organisation should be running this.
There is no real competitive market.
There is only one *.uk.
This should not be in the hands of a commercial enterprise but in the hands of a set of reasonably paid, bored, nine to five, civil servants who can’t be arsed to screw things up.
IMHO of course.
We've got a money printing machine
... and we're not afraid to use it.
How is Nominet able to get away with its actions without breaking any laws?
I was under the impression that it is answerable to the government too but I suspect the current bunch approve of this business style.
At minimum the aggrieved should get together to crowfund a legal response. A non-profit intended to act for the public interest but isn't?