Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Watch: the exact moment Nominet’s CEO sealed his fate

Kevin Murphy, March 19, 2021, 14:50:05 (UTC), Domain Registries

With Nominet CEO Russell Haworth set to lose his job on Monday, the chain of events that led to his ouster can probably be traced back to a single statement made last year, which was happily caught on camera.

At the company’s Annual General Meeting last September, Haworth announced the closure of the member discussion forum it had hosted on its own web site for many years.

He said the forum was “dominated by a handful of posters, and has increasingly become aggressive and hostile, not least towards our staff”.

The plug was pulled on the site immediately, mid-speech, driving active members into a rage.

One unimpressed member was Simon Blackler, CEO of Krystal Hosting, who later went on to start the PublicBenefit.uk campaign, whose supporters are set to ouster five directors on Monday.

Blackler told The Register recently that the “deliberately spiteful” forum closure was the final straw after years of complaints about Haworth’s leadership.

Here’s the video of Haworth’s speech, cued up to the time-code when he seals his fate:

Restoring the old forum was one of a raft of measures Nominet recently said it would introduce in order to respond to member concerns and stave off the boardroom cull. But that was apparently too little too late.

Tagged: , , ,

Comments (2)

  1. Andres Marinho says:

    In Brazil, the Internet Steering Committee – CGI.BR and NIC.BR earn millions.

    Only CGI.BR advisors can use the millions that NIC.BR invoices with the registration of domains and the sale of Premium domains.

    Around here, CGI.BR uses the money to pay for caviar, expensive lunches, expensive trips and sponsoring parties of the advisors themselves.

    There are members of CGI.BR and NIC.BR who do not want to leave the board, as they can use the millions!

  2. Rob Golding says:

    And today they announced the CEO is stepping down, 1 day before the crucial EGM votes are counted

Leave a Reply to Rob Golding