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Nominet boss has epiphany and calls for calm as his job hangs by a thread

Kevin Murphy, February 5, 2021, 15:41:30 (UTC), Domain Registries

Nominet’s CEO has abruptly taken a conciliatory tone with members in a new blog post, as support grows for his ouster.

Russell Haworth today posted that the organization and its members need to change the tone of their often-hostile arguments, and agreed to play his part in doing that in future.

In the next several weeks, Nominet will be forced to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting in which members will try to fire Haworth and most of the board of directors.

He also called for members to be “pragmatic” about Nominet’s strategy, reminding them that the internet is a very different and more dangerous place than the idealistic technology Eden that birthed it 25 years ago:

Nominet was founded at a time when the Internet was a palpable source of hope and optimism, long before it was considered critical national infrastructure, and before the very real challenges all of us now face keeping things running and safe.

We try to manage Nominet for the Internet that we have, even as we keep striving for the world where technology continues to deliver on its potential as a force for good.

As we know, today’s Internet sadly has too many bad actors bent on destruction and equipped with increasingly complex digital weaponry. Managing crucial elements of the UK’s Internet infrastructure requires that we bring a cold realism to the challenge and that we equip ourselves professionally and commercially to succeed.

This appears to be a justification for the company’s venture into commercial network security services, which Nominet’s critics believe is non-core, eating up resources that could otherwise be diverted to public benefit causes.

Simon Blackler of the registrar Krystal Hosting, who launched the petition for the EGM at PublicBenefit.uk, told DI:

He seems to be saying that Nominet needs to protect against bad actors; something we’ve not disagreed with. Of course Nominet should secure critical .UK infrastructure. That’s just a part of the core business. It’s more questionable whether it needs to be making forays in to commercial “cyber defence”, something that’s being covered by the private sector (and presumably Government) already.

One of PublicBenefit’s criticisms has been that spending on board compensation, and Haworth’s pay in particular, has risen even while operating profits have declined.

Haworth’s post goes on to say that Nominet staff are regularly headhunted by other tech firms, which may or may not be a response to this criticism.

Addressing the “tone” of the debate, Haworth acknowledges that Nominet has been at odds with some members for a very long time. Members have been angered by changes such as the decision six years ago to allow direct, second-level registrations, he notes.

Perhaps as a result of the length of some of these disagreements, we all may have found ourselves approaching our interactions with the wrong tone.

In order to make progress, that needs to change. I commit to playing my part to make that happen. Starting now.

The post comes as the PublicBenefit.uk campaign hits 176 supporting members representing 13% of all potential votes.

That not may not seem like a lot, but due to Nominet’s complicated system of vote caps and the fact that EGN turnout is not usually very high, it could well be enough to get the 50%+1 of votes cast required to ouster Haworth and the other targeted board members.

On the “tone” question, Blackler disputes Haworth’s narrative, telling us:

I find it surprising that he feels the need to address “tone”. The campaign I’ve put together is based on fact and where there’s emotion from me it’s to do with the staggering waste of an opportunity with regards to Nominet’s public benefit mandate

He said he talked this week to chairman Mark Wood, who’s also on the EGM hit-list, and the tone was “entirely civil”.

An impetus for the current campaign was Nominet’s decision to close down its age-old web-based member discussion forum, which happened live during the company’s Annual General Meeting last year.

While Haworth described the forum at the time “increasingly become aggressive and hostile” towards Nominet staff, many members took the move as a deliberate slap in the face and an indication the company was no longer interested in engaging with members.

It is now.

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Comments (1)

  1. Snoopy says:
    February 6, 2021 at 4:11 am

    He should be fired solely on the basis of the disastrous .UK launch.

    Reply

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