development UK Nominet in Big Trouble?

[premkumar]

I think many namepros members know that Nominet govern (.uk, co.uk & other uk extensions), yesterday i got mail from them saying "resolution to remove five members of the Nominet Board, including the Chair and the entire executive leadership team."

Literally entire nominet management team may be removed or retained. in case if resolution succeed, they will be removed from their job and i don't know who will govern if that happen and will UK govt take over Nominet administration or remaining members / nominet members elect new chair?


I have few questions:
1. who initiated this resolution? to my knowledge such Extraordinary General Meeting to remove half of board member not done previously.
2. The board promises so many things, if they are retained, some of that they could never listen member request in normal time like:

Freezing .UK prices for at least the next two years
Freezing Board Pay
Investing in .UK infrastructure
Scaling our commitment to Public Benefit
Improving membership engagement
Increasing financial transparency
Launching a Registry Advisory Council (RAC)


Can fellow nominet member in NP, throw some light on what's happening in nominet?


Hey wait i forgot, i got call from nominet today regarding the resolution and asked me to vote, though she said she can't say what to vote but when i said don't worry i will vote No, she laughed more or less it clear they want the resolution to defeated.


I don't know i can share the mail from Nominet, if it can be shared, I will post it .

 

[jmcc]

Much appreciated @jmcc. I just read the Nominet statement. A good start to the week. I doubt statements of intent to members who have been ignored by them for years will cut much ice. Perhaps AGM turnouts will, for some unexplained reason (sic), increase greatly for at least a couple of years and there may even be one or two AGM motions which cannot be ignored or sidestepped.

I was wondering if it would not pass beause of the politics of the big registrars versus the small registrars and the members. Most of the people who made the statements of intent lost their place on the board in the last 48 hours. If the mergers and acquisitions of the last few years had not taken place (Godaddy buying up a pile of UK hosters and also Newfold Digital merging EIG/PDR/Web.com), the status quo would have prevailed because the voting power of these registrar operators would have been greater than that of the bulk of the members. The capping of the votes of the large players also helped. It was close. The way that Wood's posture visibly crumbled at the end seemed to indicate that things were not going well for the board. The turnout seems to have been the highest in Nominet history.

Regards...jmcc

 

[carob]

Found the EGM has been uploaded to Youtube for all to see:

 

[carob]

Article and analysis in Register today

https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/24/nominet_board_plan/

 

[carob]

Fresh article in Register today - Nominet still resisting change and ignoring members even after EGM:

https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/01/nominet_future_plans/

 

[Alop]

“The system is rigged if I vote will I change it?”

 

[TCK]

@premkumar Thanks. Can you post a link the source of the news?

 

[premkumar]

“The system is rigged if I vote will I change it?”

Every vote is counted, if you're a member holding just 1 domain also you get 1332 vote value, it make some difference because not many member cast their vote so your vote will have higher value.

whether you vote for or against resolution, but just excise your right that is very important. Members views and needs will only be taken care only if we vote, otherwise management need to appease only few member who have higher vote value and excise the vote.

I tell you, that's what happening till now and members grievance are not even heard. I felt that many time nobody in nominet taken care of grievance i raised.

 

[carob]

Have not received email. Can I vote via my Nominet account?

A cleanup at Nominet is long overdue.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Have not received email. Can I vote via my Nominet account?

A cleanup at Nominet is long overdue.

You should have received an email, I didn't, but I did get a phone call from Nominet asking me if I had received it.

Go to https://secure.cesvotes.com/V3-1-0/nominetEGM21/en/login and click 'Where is my security code?' then click 'Don't know your security code?' and you can enter your Nominet details and you'll get email a link so that you can vote.

(CES are the people that they have conducting the poll btw)

 

[premkumar]

Support is now at 24.5% against a target of at least 25%:

https://publicbenefit.uk/#support

Great that in the last week Namecheap came on board, possibly the largest supporter so far, well worth contacting undecided registars to encourage them to support this.

11 of the top 20 registrars are undecided according to publicbenefit.uk, namely these:

yesterday they are 20.5% now today i think Namecheap pledge it support for the vote, i think its their biggest supporter with 3% vote .

 

[carob]

Support now up to 24.7%

https://publicbenefit.uk/#support

I have contacted several registrars as a customer. Haven't contacted Godaddy yet. Key-Systems/Internebs/CentralNIC are surprisingly undecided still.

Note: weird voting system - you do not need 50% to win - 25% is an excellent target.

 

[carob]

Today support is at 25%. https://publicbenefit.uk/

And yes unsurprisingly, target shown there has now been revised up from 25% to 30%, the more support the better.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Well whatever happens I hope that the people that are installed don't start tweeting their virtue like every other org now.

Tucows just voted yes. That's 2 million votes in favour of the motion. (It is a strange vote counting system.)

Regards...jmcc

I think it's proportionate to the number of domains that the registrar is responsible for. So in that sense it makes sense I suppose?

 

[jmcc]

Well whatever happens I hope that the people that are installed don't start tweeting their virtue like every other org now.

I think it's proportionate to the number of domains that the registrar is responsible for. So in that sense it makes sense I suppose?

Yep. It would make a good headline though and this is probably the most engaged the .UK Nominet membership has been for years and the board of Nominet seems very worried about its future.

Regards...jmcc

 

[premkumar]

Webinar over, voting will end in 16:15. The guy i think Rob said that they have contingency plan .

 

[Mike Goodman]

Much appreciated @jmcc. I just read the Nominet statement. A good start to the week. I doubt statements of intent to members who have been ignored by them for years will cut much ice. Perhaps AGM turnouts will, for some unexplained reason (sic), increase greatly for at least a couple of years and there may even be one or two AGM motions which cannot be ignored or sidestepped.

 

[jmcc]

So do we know, or when will we know, who the board is or will be from now going forward to the next AGM? Will the membership get a say in who is on the board at the next AGM (depending when it is I'm hoping to be a member by then)?

Not sure about the procedures but I think that all those removed were not elected board members. The e-mail from the acting chairman (Rob Binns) did cover some of it but was not specific as to elections and dates.Eleanor Bradley and Ben Hill still retain their jobs as MD and CFO but are not members of the board.

Regards...jmcc

 

[premkumar]

so the biggest soap opera come to an End. End? Lets wait and see.

I have seen board room coups in movies and in news but seeing and experience one first hand gives me feeling that how tricky people act to save themselves and how they use their knowledge and effort to win and not bothering whether is it fair or not. could have been great if they put such effort towards the nominet and its members benefits.

 

[carob]

Article and analysis in Register today

https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/24/nominet_board_plan/

Found in that article:

GoDaddy is Nominet’s largest member and it voted against the EGM

 

[premkumar]

Read the PDF unbelievable

1. Members fired Eleanor Bradley, now she came back as CEO wow wow a promotion
2. Nobody member / public benefit said about huge reserve, but they came up with plan to empty the cookie worth 20 million pound.
3. Appointed new board member from their own staff and now board is back to their control
4. no word about reducing their pay
5. no appointment of Sir Michael Lyons and Axel Pawlik rather they search a new person and it take 6 month
6. Considering what “membership” means - are they plan to reduce our power or increase the power their beneficator likes of Daddy

 

[Mike Goodman]

All of the above.

6. Considering what “membership” means - are they plan to reduce our power or increase the power their beneficator likes of Daddy

Very much the latter, I fear. And GD voted with the board at the EGM. I'm now out of GD altogether, including their raft of subsidiaries, which includes Afternic.

I suggest we all ask our contacts to do the same, at least as a temporary measure, and tell the GD reps why we're doing it, show them who really pays their wages and rub in the fact that they can't keep taking the piss for ever and expect nobody to respond

Once the bottom line is affected I'm reasonably confident the GD shareholders will butt in on our side. Subscribers are already bailing out due to the Brent Oxley affair. It won't take much more to have an impact.

 

[Mike Goodman]

Simon Blackler was making the same point on LinkedIn yesterday. It appears to be shaping up as an inevitability.

 

[premkumar]

There is a lot more to this than meets the eye from reading the two documents you mention. The history goes back some way.

The members have been asking questions about the board's change of direction away from members' interests and into their own ambitions for a very long time. You're damned right director's incomes will be cut. Hard. And the remuneration committee done away with altogether for the time being.

The interim board of two people wil be assisted by members to revise the constitution in a direction taking it back to its original purpose of a public interest, membership owned and run, body and a full examination to find the best management structure to do so. Domain pricing of the *.uk stable is a minor issue. More in question is the board's opportunism in taking on non-.uk TLDs in order to inflate profits, whilst simultaneously slashing the amounts awarded to charitable causes and not underpinning the prices of the .uk stable it is supposed to be managing. That UK stable is now underpinning their very costly mistakes in other TLDs and in takeover activities, plus the inner management group's ever inflating "reward" packages. Hence the *.uk price rises.

The stated intention (which I trust, knowing some at least of the instigators) is to return the newly amended constitution to the membership for full consideration, any proposed further amendments by the wider membership and a full membership vote. Hence the limited, two year tenure, proposed for the new incumbents if the motion is passed.

Great thanks for the information. yep moving away from mandate is wrong and also i think, they should make all director positions to be directly elected by members rather than being appointed by few. so that director asking our vote have goals that benefit the nominet and the members. I also like the 2 year tenure, so the director are answerable to their action if they decided to stand for reelection


About price, i have several thousand names and even a pound less per domain save a lot and break even for me.

 

[Mytz.com]

Thanks

 

[platey]

sure, but cast your vote

the buying and selling of website addresses will be huge in the uk when

uk personalised numberplate resellers

start advertising website addresses in the p apers

which isnt far away as the customer database is the same as those that pay top dollar to buy a personalised licence plate for their uk sportscar etc and the uk personalised numberplate resellers already have outbound sales teams and some of these companies have 40× years experience in this sector etc and these companies wil eventually be able to offer instant purchase for secondhand website addresses which will add liquidity to domain name iinvestors portfolios etc





UK is still a very good market and people sell good number of domains even in 5 figure, you have nominet membership?

My suggestion keep adding uk domains in your portfolio they are good investments but be picky don't buy medicore ones.