.UK under threat? (4.Viewing)

The Register said:

Nominet vows to freeze wages and prices, boost donations, and be more open. For many members, it’s too little, too late

The board of .uk registry operator Nominet has offered a series of concessions to its members in an effort to win back their support in advance of an extraordinary meeting that could see most of them fired.

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The CEO of Nominet said:

Business Continuity Under Threat

The advocates of the EGM resolution argue that both firing the leadership and reducing the price of domains will not have any serious impact on the organisation. But cutting prices will ultimately lead to sustained under-investment in the registry. Coupled with another demand of the campaigners to disband our DNS cyber capabilities it would wind the clock back 10 years and completely ignore how complex and challenging the internet has become in the intervening decade. Figure 1 below shows the rising complexity of managing the .UK domain namespace given the number of DNS queries and security risks.

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Nominet has raised the specter of a government takeover of the .uk registry, should members vote to oust five of its top directors at an Emergency General Meeting a week from now.

The warning came as part of the company’s anti-EGM publicity, and at a time when the campaign for a Yes vote has passed 25% of eligible votes, with Namecheap becoming the biggest name yet to support the ouster.

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UK Digital Economy Act said:

(a)the registry, or any of its registrars or end-users, engages in prescribed practices that are unfair or involve the misuse of internet domain names, or

(b)the arrangements made by the registry for dealing with complaints in connection with internet domain names do not comply with prescribed requirements.

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The Register said:

Meanwhile, PublicBenefit.uk is urging its supporters to go through with the vote to dump the CEO, chair and three other board members. It argues that the remaining six board members could then immediately convene a meeting and appoint to the two proposed caretaker directors – ex-BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons and internet infrastructure veteran Axel Pawlik – “in accordance with the members' wishes.”

That approach is also fraught with uncertainty. For one, a number of the remaining six board members are thought to be loyal to the current leadership team and so may refuse to appoint the caretaker directors, even if they are unlikely to attempt to reappoint the existing board given the result of a member vote. The remaining board members could also argue that without a member vote, there is insufficient proof that members want to appoint Lyons and Pawlik and that they should run their own process to find a new chair and CEO.

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