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Three big changes could be coming to .uk

Kevin Murphy, October 9, 2019, Domain Registries

Nominet wants to know what you thinking about three significant policy changes that could be implemented in the next year or so.
The .uk registry today published a consultation document covering two security-related changes and one related to expired domains.
First, Nominet wants to know if it should be allowed to preemptively block resolution on newly registered domains where it has “identified a high risk the domain will be used for phishing”.
It looks like more of a cosmetic policy change, given that the company is already blocking suspected phishing domains where the registrant fails to adequately verify their identity.
About 1,500 domains were blocked like this in the 12 months ending July 2019, Nominet says, on the basis of its Domain Watch program, which combines technical and manual oversight to identify phishy-looking names.
Second, Nominet want to know if it should display an standard informational web page when it blocks a domain on the basis of fraud, copyright infringement, and counterfeiting.
Currently, the company takes down tens of thousands of names every year on this basis, but the names are simply removed from the zone file and refuse to resolve.
Nominet’s friends in law enforcement reckon that allowing the the domains to instead resolve to a standard web page instead could help victims of fraudulent sites help with police investigations, and Nominet wants to know if you agree.
A side-effect of this would be that the names would remain in the zone, so we’d be able to see for the first time which names get suspended for fraud.
Third, Nominet wants to know whether it should start openly publishing drop-lists, the list of domains that have expired registrations and are about to become available.
This appears to be bad news for those registrars currently “excessively” pinging the registry to compile their own lists and get the jump on competitors when it comes to drop-catching valuable names for resale.
Nominet seems to want to see fewer dropped domains winding up in the hands of domainers, saying currently “not all dropping domains are registered and actively used by the new registrant, reducing the vibrancy of .UK domains”.
It’s proposing to give drop-lists just to registrars, or to publish them openly.
All three questions are open for comment until December 15.

Smaller registrars say .uk release is biased towards the Big Boys

Kevin Murphy, June 3, 2019, Domain Registrars

A group of small .uk registrars have complained to Nominet that the imminent release of three million second-level .uk domain names is biased towards their deep-pocketed rivals.
So far, 33 registrars have signed a petition, penned by Netistrar’s Andrew Bennett, against Nominet’s rules.
On July 1, the registry plans to start releasing .uk 2LDs that are currently reserved under its five-year-long grandfathering program.
These are domains that match existing third-level domains in .co.uk, .org.uk, etc.
The 3LD registrants have until 0500 UTC on June 25 to claim their 2LD matches. A week later, Nominet will start releasing them in alphabetical batches of 600,000 per day, over five days, to the available pool.
It’s going to be a little like “the drop” in gTLDs such as .com, with registrars all vying to pick up the most-valuable names as soon as they are released.
In the gTLD space, each registrar is given an equal number of connections, which is why drop-catch specialists such as SnapNames own hundreds of registrar accreditations.
Nominet’s doing it a little different, instead throttling connections based on how much credit registrars have with the registry, which the petitioners believe rigs the system towards the registrars with the most money.
According to the Nominet, registrars with £450 of credit get six connections per minute, rising to nine per minute for those with £4,500, 60 per minute for £45,000 and, at the top end, 150 per minute for registrars with £90,000 stashed in the Bank of Nominet.
Larger registrars with multiple Nominet accreditations, known as “tags” in the .uk space, will be able to stack their connections for an even greater chance at grabbing the best names.
Registrars such as GoDaddy are already taking pre-orders and will auction off the domains they catch to the highest bidder, if there are multiple pre-orders for the same names, so there’s potentially a fair bit of money to be made.
The small registrars say these credit-based rules are “disproportionately unfair” to their business models.
They point out that it doesn’t make much sense to rate-limit connections based on their proven ability to pay, given that there’s no link between how many they plan to register in the crucial first minute after the drop and how many they intend to register overall.
Nominet says on its web site that the tiers as described are provisional and will be firmed up the week of June 24.
The petitioners are also bothered that Nominet has not made any EPP code available to help the smaller guys, which have fewer engineering resources, to adjust to this temporary, time-sensitive registration system, and that the release plan was not communicated well to registrars.
They further claim that Nominet has not conducted enough outreach to .uk registrants to let them know their grandfathered rights will soon expire.
Many well-known brands have yet to claim their trademark.uk names, they claim.
Nominet has previously told DI that it planned to advertise the end of grandfathering in the press and on radio in the run-up to the release.