Blackout Week Protest
- Thread starter DomainShield
- Start date
DomainShield
Top Contributor
"Growing all year" is both 100% true and also misleading.
Jun 2014 there where 10.4 million
Jun 2015 10.2 million
Jun 2016 10.1 million by the end of 2016 there where less than 10 million 3rd level .uk domains.
It looks like they might end 2017 with a little over 10 million...
How can you defend a 5 year decrease of half a million domains with a short term 5 month increase of only 80 thousand?
If you look carefully at the numbers you will even notice that in the first 4 months of every year there seems to be a small recovery in .co.uk total registration before they slump further in the latter part of the year,
For the record the .uk registrations grew from 96 thousand in Jun 2014 to close to 637 thousand in May 2017. The growth was consistent month on month for the entire period.
DomainShield
Top Contributor
Not if you consider the .au graph for the same time period, our graph flattened out just like .co.uk and .co.nz at around about the same time (introduction of new GTLDs). Sadly we do not have .au to help stimulate growth by providing an attractive easy to register local alternative for innovative and dynamic businesses starting up in Australia.
Andrew Wright
Top Contributor
That's a bit of a stretch. I don't think 1000's of Australian business are flocking to new gtld's somehow.
snoopy
Top Contributor
Yep that is exactly what happened.
.co.uk lost 600,000 names over that time & .uk gained 600,000 names. There has never been any actual growth though during that time, just movement between extensions. For the last 4-5 years Nominet has reported either 10.6 million or 10.5 million names every year in its annual report. The new extension didn't add anything, it just cannibalised .co.uk (as Andrew says).
The problem is .co.uk is now weaker but growing again (so far this year). .Uk has 6% market share, that is weak.
In my view Nominet has done damage to the tld.
snoopy
Top Contributor
We are all dead in 100 years time. Domain are probably dead as well.
Good luck waiting, I'm still waiting for Betamax, it is better than VHS and should win.
snoopy
Top Contributor
The key thing with in my view is .uk is slowing. The ratio between the two extensions in terms of new registrations is now widening and is now 10:1 (.co.uk : .uk) as can be seen in the stats further up the page. It is going in the opposite way to what Nominet would have expected.
robert
Top Contributor
Your shortsightedness and loud mouth "assumptions" are well documented on this forum.
My signature says it all.
Scott7
Top Contributor
To be fair, it's hard to ignore someone whom features prominently in your signature.
Data Glasses
Top Contributor
LOL ....To be fair, it's hard to ignore someone whom features prominently in your signature.
David Goldstein
Top Contributor
David Goldstein
Top Contributor
Hilarious. I also have about 5 registrars and another half dozen or so registries as clients. So your point is??? I'm still awaiting the disclaimers from the domainers saying how they're only interested in furthering their own interests and have no interests in the future of the Australian domain name industry. Still, you wouldn't want to admit to that would you. Sigh.
snoopy
Top Contributor
That you are biased towards their interests and the claim that you "have nothing to gain personally" is not accurate.
DomainNames
Top Contributor
There is a New auDA Board now. Can they fix this mess?
They can overrule a previous Boards mess and change direction and they must!
The massive vote majority count for them by auDA Members shows support for their auDA Director election platform.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...+&cd=103&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=firefox-b
"Our Thoughts On Direct Registration
We were both on the auDA 2015 Names Panel, and part of the Minority Report that did not agree with the need for direct registrations. Two years later we are even more convinced of this. It will effectively be a “double tax” on existing registrants – and an unnecessary “cash grab” by some.
- Causes confusion in the market place
- Distracts from a premium domain
- Possible unfair implementation
- Forces registrants to “defensively register” domains
- However, we do realise that there are some who have a different point of view to ourselves. Those that are in favour of direct registration. To them we say this. We respect your point of view – but we’d hope you’d agree and believe in proper process being followed. Our consistent position is that if auDA contacts every single registrant of an .au domain name and gives them the opportunity to “have a say” about introducing direct registrations (with full facts as to costs and implications), then we will accept the majority view. This hasn’t been done to date – and it should be. We must ensure that the decision is truly representational, and not a veiled attempt at pushing an agenda.
- If a full and proper consultation is not done, we commit to try and overturn the existing direct registration decision at Board level.
- If we are unsuccessful, then we’ll do our best to ensure that existing com.au registrants are protected and afforded priority rights. Why com.au registrants as opposed to any other .au extension? Because com.au holds approximately 90% of all domains in Australia.
- auDA is a membership organisation. It is accountable to a range of stakeholders, including both the “Supply” and “Demand” sides of the internet community within Australia. Nothing is more important to us than proper process.
- auDA members therefore have a right to be regularly informed about the decisions and workings of their Board of Directors, and the CEO and Senior Management.
- Comprehensive and timely Minutes should be published on the auDA website.
- Interactive communication is a necessity. This includes a website where members can post questions to management and the Board.
- Forensic reports about past events need to be released in full (and dealt with if necessary). The blame games and innuendo need to stop.
- We believe that there is great opportunity for all sides of the internet community in Australia to prosper.
- There needs to be far less red tape for registrants, registrars and resellers. This process is now underway with the recently formed Policy Review Panel, and we look forward to helping enable sensible recommendations if we are elected.
- Wholesale costs need to be examined, as it seems to us that there also needs to be a fairer distribution of “the pie”.
- Memberships should be encouraged. Every registrant of a domain name should automatically be entitled to be a free member of auDA (opt-in our opt-out model). This will increase membership numbers, and create a better internet community. Canada does this successfully in their internet space. – “Applying for membership is easy, free and open to any .CA holder.”
- We’d like to see no more “them and us” mentality (as in Supply and Demand members). Having two types of memberships creates a divide. Let’s work together for the good of the domain space instead of against each other. We need to focus on pushing the space forward, not on acting against whatever the “other side” wants.
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Andrew Wright
Top Contributor
Interesting to see how some direct registration advocates in this thread have now changed their tune...
DomainNames
Top Contributor
More and more people are waking up.
Everyone attending the PRP meetings seems to be changing their views to NO except of course a few Supply related parties we all know will never change....
Luckily the PRP meetings in each city where all recorded...
It would be catastrophic for auDA and the auDA Board if they try to implement it now...
Too much evidence has become available as even advocates have jumped off the Yes train and are NOW most firmly against.
For those who didn't go to the PRP meetings well you have no idea of the mess this is in. It's shocking and I would be careful not to put your feet in your mouth how good the direct .au will be now and how it will not have any negative affects etc etc.
You can't get much more against than this now and Congratulations for Robert Kaay for having the guts to stand up and admit he was wrong to be for it previously. That takes guts and increases his reputation for standing up for what is right even against a lot of pressure to keep quiet probably.
Many people had trusted what they had been told... Don't worry... you will get the .au... don't worry FREE for 2 years for .com.au owners.... etc etc.
What has been suggested at the PRP meetings is just plain crazy. It really makes me think about some people's own knowledge of the issues and knowledge about domain names at all.
I fell off my chair listening to a PRP public meeting recording last night. It is near insanity what they think is the least worst way to implement...
This should make it very easy for auDA and the auDA Board to knock it on the head
We akll know about the Yes Vote Stacking to get it passed before by the old Board.
The old Board is just that the old Board. They have no authority anymore and they where wrong to try and push it in like they did under all of the available information against it.
MUST READ
- https://namebid.com.au/articles/15/auda_prp_direct_au_registration/
- https://namebid.com.au/articles/16/prp-australian-domain-name-direct-au-registration-forums/
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DomainShield
Top Contributor
I for one stand by what I have said before and I'll say it again. I support direct registrations. Obviously it is pointless here to defend my point of view here so lets just ignore the problem of me being disagreeable.
I did attend almost the entire meeting in Melbourne and I contributed what I could in person. There are certainly issues with their suggestions but they are a starting point and can be used to shape a direct registration policy which meets enough of our needs as an industry to recover and grow again.
It was noted early on in the day that making submissions only about YES/NO when the conversation is currently about HOW is not helpful. According to the panel people are wasting submissions by just stating "We are against it and the end of the world is coming" without elaborating further on how the world might end. At this point you would literally have to prove that there would be a negative outcome for a majority of internet users in Australia, which if we are being honest no one can prove and this policy panel is not required to disprove.
Am I correct in saying that in the short term there is a negative outcome for domainers without cashflow reserves. That the extra costs involved in holding your .au equivalent are significant and are the problem. That there is a perception that it will be crucial to help ensure future sales? So make a submission about it, show details of your current costs and how you would like them to help keep you from going out of business by giving free rights to the .au domains for a period of time. At the moment they are open to all suggestions and they literally need you to ask for anything you need from them. So ask them... don't post here, you can even prefix your submission with a one liner "I am against direct registration but if it did happen then this is how you would make it fair on me and my business". Bear in mind that we will have 1 - 5 year registrations soon so this will help with holding costs and I believe the promised changes to the .au wholesale price is going to be decided/announced towards the end of March. In retrospect it would have been nice to know before submissions end (4th March) but one could put in a submission saying that if the price drops by x% of current then you could explain the effect it would have. I would advise against arguing on behalf of "small businesses" or speaking for "your customers" rather make a case for how it would affect you directly and that you estimate there are x thousand companies which would be affected in the same way as you would. The more reasoned your argument and more pausible your estimates are the more likely you are to sway their opinion.
Another negative outcome would be for .com.au holders to not get preference over .net.au, asn.au and id.au domains. The argument put forward by the panel is "No hierarchy of rights" so it is necessary to provide evidence that .com.au (or gov.au or org.au) domains deserve to break the hierarchy of rights rule. It is probably worth brainstorming on a separate thread ideas on this front but here are a few of mine. 1) There is talk of closing the .net.au namespace so why should they get assigned value in the "lottery". 2) id.au are spoken about as the "failed namespace" with only 10,000 registrations and declining why would they get assigned value in the "lottery". 3) asn.au is for hobbies and special interest groups, which in our opinion should not be allowed the potential to take preference over .com.au. 4) There is evidence of speculative domain registrations and company registrations in .id.au and .net.au space so if there is a) a view by com.au holders that securing their .net.au was not important and b) that speculators predicted this might happen then can we conclude that the lottery rewards the speculation and goes some way to undermine the message that defensive registrations are not necessary.
When arguing against "the hierarchy of rights" rules and the lottery system, it might also be a good idea to include the "first come first served" rule which is presented as also being a cornerstone argument. By using the lottery system and allowing the "hierarchy of rights" rule to take precedence over the "length of registration" option which would meet the "first come first served" requirement you have to break one of the three rules. The very real problem with giving the domains to the oldest registrant is that .au had lots of domains held back on reserved lists so it is possible that one would have to judge the oldest registrant relative to the domains actual availability.
If it was possible to show the Panel that they have to break at least one of the three rules in order to introduce direct registrations then it would be possible to put forward an argument that the "least bad" option is not in fact only breaking one of the three options but to actually break two of them together in order to do the least harm. I would propose that they break the "heirarchy of rights" and "first come first served" rules by following the international precedence and giving the .com.au holders first rights (or at least rights before the .net.au, id.au and asn.au extensions).
As far as arguments which I think are currently not holding enough water to prove a disadvantage to the majority of Australian internet users I would put the following three arguments into the basket of being not helpful at this time.
A) .nz and .uk have failed. i) this is too broad a statement ii) there are too many variables, graphs can be drawn either way. iii) SHOUTING does not make something more true. iv) The panel does not read dntrade v) I don't read all of dntrade. vi) Repeating something does not make it more true. vii) Repeating something does not make it more true. viii) Rewording something does not make it more true.
B) rigged surveys i) the board believed this the first time and ordered their own research ii) that survey confirmed the results. iii) I don't think they have seen enough evidence to suggest that this needs to be done again.
C) Old board/New board i) auDA is auDA and they have to build on and improve on what they have. ii) Board members must act in the best interest of auDA which by extension is the best interests of all Australian Internet users. This means that they cannot represent us directly or make changes at our request unless those requirements or suggestions make it through the panel first and are put forward as recommendations. It is vital to be a part of the processes and to put in submissions both in person and in writing. Attacking the panel and calling their ideas crazy does not help to get your ideas included in the recommendations. Concise, well reasoned submissions are needed.
My protest and the problems which put me out of business where very real and very painful for me at the time. I chose to attack auDA. I chose to not get involved in auDA processes and to sit on the outside throwing rocks at them instead. I raged against the machine and the perceived unfairness of it all.
Did I succeed in hurting them? Probably not, they seemed to just get annoyed as I wasted lots of their time.
Did I achieve anything positive? No, they just got annoyed and the process carried on.
So the life lesson for me on this is that unless you can prove that the majority of internet users in Australia would be better off because of your issue then you are actually looking out for yourself. With that realization in mind it is then possible to change ones mindset from expecting auDA to meet your demands to asking auDA to meet your needs.
To their credit behind the scenes they had been working to address all of my valid issues and now that I have stopped making demands and I am being clear about looking at my needs I can once again see how their processes are working to meet those needs.
I am back in the camp of people who believe that the processes works, even when there is so much turmoil. I am working on a submission about how we want to see it implemented in which I try to justify the .com.au holders getting priority, that the 2016 date was too far back, that domainers and the aftermarket are an important part of a mature namespace, that domain monetisation is a valid commercial undertaking, that modern monetisation technology changes need to be factored into the policy, that the ability of all registrants to absorbs holding cost of .au should be looked at, that we should allow privacy on the public whois and that the goal should be to reduce the complexity of policies.
In my experience being a domainer or a drop catcher in .au has always has been a tough and tenuous profession. I have refereed to it in the past as a mistress, lots of fun but not very stable. The progress that was made on opening up .au domains to monetisation and making it easier to sell domains in the last 10 years has the potential to be reversed by the current Policy Review Panel. I am not going to be attacking the suggestions and processes to gain publicity. I am also not going to applaud anyone else who I perceive as trying to gain an audience at our expense. So no more stones, I am actively looking for bricks now... not for throwing but ones we can use to build something better together with the Policy Panel and the one to come after them and after that again. It is a long slow process and it is not a glorious one but it is the one which affects real change.
If you have read this far then I would implore you to come along to the dntrade meetup tomorrow evening in the city, let me buy you a beer, let me hear you explain why your demands are actually needs. Let me see how your stones are for building and not for destroying. In return you can hear some of my crazy ideas from the other side of the equation and perhaps gain a little perspective from my stand point.
I did attend almost the entire meeting in Melbourne and I contributed what I could in person. There are certainly issues with their suggestions but they are a starting point and can be used to shape a direct registration policy which meets enough of our needs as an industry to recover and grow again.
It was noted early on in the day that making submissions only about YES/NO when the conversation is currently about HOW is not helpful. According to the panel people are wasting submissions by just stating "We are against it and the end of the world is coming" without elaborating further on how the world might end. At this point you would literally have to prove that there would be a negative outcome for a majority of internet users in Australia, which if we are being honest no one can prove and this policy panel is not required to disprove.
Am I correct in saying that in the short term there is a negative outcome for domainers without cashflow reserves. That the extra costs involved in holding your .au equivalent are significant and are the problem. That there is a perception that it will be crucial to help ensure future sales? So make a submission about it, show details of your current costs and how you would like them to help keep you from going out of business by giving free rights to the .au domains for a period of time. At the moment they are open to all suggestions and they literally need you to ask for anything you need from them. So ask them... don't post here, you can even prefix your submission with a one liner "I am against direct registration but if it did happen then this is how you would make it fair on me and my business". Bear in mind that we will have 1 - 5 year registrations soon so this will help with holding costs and I believe the promised changes to the .au wholesale price is going to be decided/announced towards the end of March. In retrospect it would have been nice to know before submissions end (4th March) but one could put in a submission saying that if the price drops by x% of current then you could explain the effect it would have. I would advise against arguing on behalf of "small businesses" or speaking for "your customers" rather make a case for how it would affect you directly and that you estimate there are x thousand companies which would be affected in the same way as you would. The more reasoned your argument and more pausible your estimates are the more likely you are to sway their opinion.
Another negative outcome would be for .com.au holders to not get preference over .net.au, asn.au and id.au domains. The argument put forward by the panel is "No hierarchy of rights" so it is necessary to provide evidence that .com.au (or gov.au or org.au) domains deserve to break the hierarchy of rights rule. It is probably worth brainstorming on a separate thread ideas on this front but here are a few of mine. 1) There is talk of closing the .net.au namespace so why should they get assigned value in the "lottery". 2) id.au are spoken about as the "failed namespace" with only 10,000 registrations and declining why would they get assigned value in the "lottery". 3) asn.au is for hobbies and special interest groups, which in our opinion should not be allowed the potential to take preference over .com.au. 4) There is evidence of speculative domain registrations and company registrations in .id.au and .net.au space so if there is a) a view by com.au holders that securing their .net.au was not important and b) that speculators predicted this might happen then can we conclude that the lottery rewards the speculation and goes some way to undermine the message that defensive registrations are not necessary.
When arguing against "the hierarchy of rights" rules and the lottery system, it might also be a good idea to include the "first come first served" rule which is presented as also being a cornerstone argument. By using the lottery system and allowing the "hierarchy of rights" rule to take precedence over the "length of registration" option which would meet the "first come first served" requirement you have to break one of the three rules. The very real problem with giving the domains to the oldest registrant is that .au had lots of domains held back on reserved lists so it is possible that one would have to judge the oldest registrant relative to the domains actual availability.
If it was possible to show the Panel that they have to break at least one of the three rules in order to introduce direct registrations then it would be possible to put forward an argument that the "least bad" option is not in fact only breaking one of the three options but to actually break two of them together in order to do the least harm. I would propose that they break the "heirarchy of rights" and "first come first served" rules by following the international precedence and giving the .com.au holders first rights (or at least rights before the .net.au, id.au and asn.au extensions).
As far as arguments which I think are currently not holding enough water to prove a disadvantage to the majority of Australian internet users I would put the following three arguments into the basket of being not helpful at this time.
A) .nz and .uk have failed. i) this is too broad a statement ii) there are too many variables, graphs can be drawn either way. iii) SHOUTING does not make something more true. iv) The panel does not read dntrade v) I don't read all of dntrade. vi) Repeating something does not make it more true. vii) Repeating something does not make it more true. viii) Rewording something does not make it more true.
B) rigged surveys i) the board believed this the first time and ordered their own research ii) that survey confirmed the results. iii) I don't think they have seen enough evidence to suggest that this needs to be done again.
C) Old board/New board i) auDA is auDA and they have to build on and improve on what they have. ii) Board members must act in the best interest of auDA which by extension is the best interests of all Australian Internet users. This means that they cannot represent us directly or make changes at our request unless those requirements or suggestions make it through the panel first and are put forward as recommendations. It is vital to be a part of the processes and to put in submissions both in person and in writing. Attacking the panel and calling their ideas crazy does not help to get your ideas included in the recommendations. Concise, well reasoned submissions are needed.
My protest and the problems which put me out of business where very real and very painful for me at the time. I chose to attack auDA. I chose to not get involved in auDA processes and to sit on the outside throwing rocks at them instead. I raged against the machine and the perceived unfairness of it all.
Did I succeed in hurting them? Probably not, they seemed to just get annoyed as I wasted lots of their time.
Did I achieve anything positive? No, they just got annoyed and the process carried on.
So the life lesson for me on this is that unless you can prove that the majority of internet users in Australia would be better off because of your issue then you are actually looking out for yourself. With that realization in mind it is then possible to change ones mindset from expecting auDA to meet your demands to asking auDA to meet your needs.
To their credit behind the scenes they had been working to address all of my valid issues and now that I have stopped making demands and I am being clear about looking at my needs I can once again see how their processes are working to meet those needs.
I am back in the camp of people who believe that the processes works, even when there is so much turmoil. I am working on a submission about how we want to see it implemented in which I try to justify the .com.au holders getting priority, that the 2016 date was too far back, that domainers and the aftermarket are an important part of a mature namespace, that domain monetisation is a valid commercial undertaking, that modern monetisation technology changes need to be factored into the policy, that the ability of all registrants to absorbs holding cost of .au should be looked at, that we should allow privacy on the public whois and that the goal should be to reduce the complexity of policies.
In my experience being a domainer or a drop catcher in .au has always has been a tough and tenuous profession. I have refereed to it in the past as a mistress, lots of fun but not very stable. The progress that was made on opening up .au domains to monetisation and making it easier to sell domains in the last 10 years has the potential to be reversed by the current Policy Review Panel. I am not going to be attacking the suggestions and processes to gain publicity. I am also not going to applaud anyone else who I perceive as trying to gain an audience at our expense. So no more stones, I am actively looking for bricks now... not for throwing but ones we can use to build something better together with the Policy Panel and the one to come after them and after that again. It is a long slow process and it is not a glorious one but it is the one which affects real change.
If you have read this far then I would implore you to come along to the dntrade meetup tomorrow evening in the city, let me buy you a beer, let me hear you explain why your demands are actually needs. Let me see how your stones are for building and not for destroying. In return you can hear some of my crazy ideas from the other side of the equation and perhaps gain a little perspective from my stand point.
snoopy
Top Contributor
The panel is wasting its time telling people that because the conversion is not about "how", members are currently at "why". Since early 2016 auDA has been claiming we are at how, this has not gone well for auDA and I suspect it will continue to go badly for them because they have not adequately covered "why".
The panel has been told by auDA they must find a way regardless, with no scope for telling auDA they can't implement in a fair matter. That is likely to end in a disastrous policy.
The merits must be discussed.
DomainNames
Top Contributor
3 PRP members have said they still stand by their previous submissions against .au for many reasons they have previously raised which have not been addressed by auDA or the auDA Board still.
Think on that for a minute....
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