SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The perilous state of the UK's internet space has been exposed once again, as the second largest seller of .uk domain names admitted last night it wrongly sold dozens of valuable internet addresses.
Eagle-eyed dot-UK registry watchers noticed unexpected changes in ownership of various .uk names over the weekend – including sunset.uk, waterfall.uk, pad.uk and trending.uk: all of which were sold by Fasthosts to one or more industry insiders rather than going through the proper public process.
The domain names were supposed to expire and drop onto the open market, after which all domain-name traders could compete to catch the addresses and resell them later on. Instead, though, Fasthosts allowed at least one of its customers to renew and obtain the domain names on the day of their expiry, just before they were due to drop.
That meant certain folk had a mile-long head start snapping up valuable domains before the rest of the industry could have a fair crack at acquiring the dot-uk addresses. We dived into the world of catching expired .uk domains here if you want to know more about how it works.
Fasthosts said the sales were "a mistake," with its head of sales and marketing Michelle Stark telling The Register on Wednesday that 38 expiring domains had been renewed and shifted before they publicly dropped in a "one-off online transaction" due to "human error."
(Score: 2) by leon_the_cat on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:00AM
anything in UK that has a "regulator" will suffer from it, usually these bored overpaid fuckwits will eventually want a larger slice of the cake.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:23AM (1 child)
Not a country, anymore, t'is it? I thought they Brexisted, and ceased to exist. So now we have the Republics, no more kingdoms with their Kardashian like poopyratsi, and the Poop and Ceremony, and the Bearer of the Black Rod, but real, vibrant political communities, like Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall. Cornwall is a bit daft, though, and may stick to the Anglos, and the Saxones, and the Jutes. Fucking Germans!
So not surprising all this confusion. Boris (I mean, Boris? Could he have any more of a Ruskie name?) Son of John? Why not is his name "Johanssen", like this Dane raiding ancestors? But Boris is leading the English straight off a cliff, into even more insignificance than they previously could have imagined. Bad enough, when Ian Fleming had to invent the compensation fantasy of James Bond to buck up the fallen Empire on whom the Sun has Set. Would have been easier to go the American route, and all buy guns and big trucks to make up for the loss of manhood.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday September 19 2020, @07:49AM
Nah, it's still in its death throes. Give it a couple of years, though...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday September 19 2020, @09:53AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday September 19 2020, @10:09AM (2 children)
Why, exactly, should someone be allowed to buy domain names, only to use them for speculation? The idiots who have basically registered the entire dictionary make finding a decent domain name difficult - and they contribute nothing at all. Like patent trolls, they are a net drain on the economy.
The solution is rather simple: Only registrars are allowed to sell domain names, and only for their regular prices.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday September 19 2020, @02:25PM
Careful now, that's Commie talk. You'll start a culture war and upset some Alt-Wrong snowflakes.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:07PM
Nominet allow it because every domain sale is a sale and money in their pocket.
Nominet lost any kind of credibility years ago, they are now just there to create artificial things to sell to their friends, and then make money from doing so.
They haven't been an independent, sensible, non-profit naming agency in decades.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday September 19 2020, @05:04PM
A .uk is not valuable.
Almost all .co.uk owners where literally blackmailed into taking the equivalent .uk "before someone else got it".
There was uproar, and even hosts who were pushing automatic renewals that included both (at an increased price!).
Lots of people complained, mainly because nobody gave a shit about the .uk names. It was a money-grab by Nominet to satisfy their board, nobody else really wanted them, and Nominet have for many years now just been focused on profit at any cost.
Now the period when the automatic entitlement to the same .uk as your .co.uk has passed, and nobody cared enough to buy them in any large amount, the .uk's are being sold as usual. And I'm sure someone will scalp, I don't know, .ford.uk or whatever if it's not already gone. Then watch as the trademark protections all kick in and the owners get sued for holding them in bad faith.
Everything else... business as usual in the domain name market. Thousands of ridiculous names that nobody would ever care about having, all available for a pittance and in bulk to priority sellers, and then if you sell one or two for a few thousand... profit. There might even be a few people who had the .eu which - from January - British companies can't hold and have to forfeit or prove they have an EU headquarters. Maybe they think .uk is their saviour, but I doubt it.
Honestly, nobody cares about .uk at all. I don't think I've ever visited one, and I'm British. Same for .eu's. They are one of those niche TLDs that you rarely see and nothing big is ever set up on them.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday September 19 2020, @10:34PM (1 child)
Did they renew the domain, or did they obtain it? How can you renew a thing you don't own yourself? Or if they already owned it, what is the problem with renewing the same day it expires?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2020, @06:44AM
From the sound of it they used fraudulent renewals to obtain domains they didn't own.