Nominet consult on .uk WHOIS

Nominet who are the registry for the .uk domain are holding a consultation on what data the .uk WHOIS database contains.

Currently the .uk WHOIS data is what's considered "thick" will full registrant and other details given out by the WHOIS server i.e.

Result of WHOIS query:
Domain name:
     shinycleanhouse.co.uk
 Registrant:
     Andrew Other
 Registrant type:
     UK Sole Trader
 Registrant's address:
     Minerva House
     Edmund Halley Road
     Oxford
     OX4 4DQ
     United Kingdom
 Data validation:
     Registrant contact details validated by Nominet on 10-
Dec-2012
 Registrar:
     Efficient Registrar Limited [Tag = EFF]
     URL: http://www.efficientregistrar.uk
 Relevant dates:
     Registered on: before Aug-1996
     Expiry date:  06-Dec-2015
     Last updated:  25-Nov-2013
 Registration status:
     Registered until expiry date.
Name servers:
     nom-ns1.nominet.org.uk 213.248.199.16
     nom-ns2.nominet.org.uk 195.66.240.250 2a01:40:1001:37::2
     nom-ns3.nominet.org.uk 213.248.242.70

While many registries only return a "thin" version such as .com i.e.

Domain Name: EXAMPLE.COM
   Registrar: TUCOWS DOMAINS INC.
   Sponsoring Registrar IANA ID: 69
   Whois Server: whois.tucows.com
   Referral URL: http://www.tucowsdomains.com
   Name Server: NS.GBNET.NET
   Name Server: NS0.DEMON.CO.UK
   Name Server: NS1.DEMON.CO.UK
   Name Server: NS1.GBNET.NET
   Status: ok http://www.icann.org/epp#OK
   Updated Date: 08-dec-2014
   Creation Date: 23-dec-1994
   Expiration Date: 22-dec-2015

When the original policy was set in 2002 the registrant info was probably the main source of information about a domain, however with the advent of social media this situation has changed considerably.

Now there are valid reasons for not having the full registrant details available to everyone (via public WHOIS) and though Nominet does allow individuals' details to be excluded, that's pretty much the only exception to having the information published. This has also led to the development of privacy services, whereby the domain is registered to an organisation and then transferred to the privacy organisation so they information is displayed.

This has lead to issues with domain dispute issues as Nominet operate a "3 strikes" rule and if the dispute is over a domain held by a privacy organisation, then that can affect them (when it's really a customer of their's).

Nominet is looking at various options to solve these issues.

Interested stakeholders may submit a response on-line.

Nominet "knee jerk" reaction to Lord Macdonald QC

Nominet are the domain registry for .uk (i.e. all domains ending in the UK suffix), which is a Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) - as an aside it should really be .gb but companies such as Demon Internet broke that it in the early 90's.

Nominet have generally been very sensible in the past when it comes to domain registration policy and other matters relating to the UK domain space.

Now Lord Macdonald QC has published (PDF) a "Review of .uk Registration Policy" and made some recommendations which Nominet have now adopted.

The summary of the report is this: -

• Nominet should remain an open registry. Amongst other reasons set out in the body of this Review, this is because the market in domain names requires a speedy and efficient registration process and because the screening technology currently available is blunt and incapable of judging context. In circumstances where Nominet registers between 150,000-200,000 new domain names every month, this inevitably means that any pre-registration scrutiny of applications will throw up unmanageable numbers of false positives, slowing down registrations to no purpose and to a point that is likely to become commercially unviable.
• Nominet should consider instituting a system of post-registration screening, to be conducted within 48 hours of registration, for domain names that appear to signal sex crime content, or to amount in themselves to sex crimes. Where examples in this category are discovered, they should be reported to the police and suspended or de-registered. This process, in so far as it is designed to detect grave criminality, is plainly consistent with an open registration policy.
• Nominet should restrict post registration scrutiny to domain names in the serious sex crime category. This is because the relevant screening terms for sex crime are highly specific and have a stronger chance of identifying true positives. Post-registration screening for other forms of criminality will inevitably rely on very general terms that are bound to throw up unmanageable numbers of false positives.
• Nominet, which is a private company, should have no role in policing questions of taste or offensiveness on the Internet. It is not set up, trained or by culture competent to act as Internet censor, in contrast to identifying possible examples of criminality for onward reporting to the police. Furthermore, there are no objective, generally accepted standards of taste that could guide Nominet in undertaking such a role. This means that any decision- making on its part would risk uncertainty and inconsistency, which are highly undesirable ingredients where the restriction of free expression rights is concerned. Nominet would not have public confidence as censor, and it should not be expected to assume such a role in circumstances where government and police are content not to act.
• Where domain names that are alleged to signal criminal content, or to amount to crimes in themselves, or to be attached to criminal content, are brought to Nominet’s attention, Nominet should, if it agrees that they might fall into any of those categories, refer these cases to the police for further action. In consultation with the police, this could include suspension or de-registration. It is only in these circumstances that Nominet, which is not a content provider, should involve itself in the examination of website content for any regulatory purpose.
• Nominet should amend its terms and conditions to make it clear that any registration of a domain name that signals criminal content, or amounts in itself to a crime, will constitute a breach of Nominet’s terms of business, and is liable to be reported to the police and suspended or de-registered.

This all sounds very reasonable at face value, however this can lead to lots of ambiguities ... as Adrian Kennard points out in his well written blog piece ... so someone registering therapist.co.uk can fall foul of these recommendations as it may be interpreted as TheRapist.co.uk which is a sex crime.

A registrant could quite happily register murderwhoever.co.uk as this is NOT a sex crime.

It's also quite easy to circumvent as Nominet will only check the top level domain, so (again thanks to Mr Kennard) children.co.uk can be registered with no problem, and then the registrant can just use a sub-domain like f*ck.children.co.uk which Nominet have NO control over.

The law is an ass and this is a good example where it can rapidly lead to a horrible mess.

Nominet ditches direct.uk plans

Nominet is the registry for the .uk country domain. They had wanted to offer domains directly under .uk rather than the existing .co.uk, .org.uk subdomains.

As well as proposing some sensible policies (like only supporting DNSSEC the secure version of the domain name protocols) others didn't go down so well, so Nominet is re-thinking the their policies and will offer ;-

• A revised phased release mechanism based lrgely on the prior registrations of domains in existing third levels within .uk and in which contention between different applicants for the same domain name should be reduced or eliminated.
• Measures to improve security across the whole of the .uk namespace. This would include increased focus on encouraging the adoption of DNSSEC.
• A firm focus on registrant verification and some form of UK presence.
• Further investigations into the impact on the SME sector.
• An appropriate pricing model.

Which will be reviewed at the June board meeting.

If the new direct.uk system is implemented, Nominet have still committed to supporting the existing .co.uk space.

ICANN release applicants for new top level domains

ICANN or as it's properly known The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has released the list of applicants and the top level domains (TLDs) they've applied for [1]. Many of the names are expected, with big brands applying for their names such as car manufacturers and such like. Other large companies have also applied to register names of their services (such as Microsoft LIVE, but there's multiple applicants for that TLD). Amazon have also applied for a variety of TLDs (77 in fact) including AMAZON, APP, AUDIBLE, AUTHOR, AWS, BOOK, BOT, BOX (many of these will have multiple applicants). If there are multiple applicants for the same domain, ICANN will hold an auction and the highest bidder will get it. There are 40 applications from the UK (though there's a slight weirdness there as the ISO country code is actually GB so they're actually listed under that, why the UK chose UK over GB is a historical peculiarity) including LONDON which London and Partners applied for (the PR agency for London etc) and WALES applied for by Nominet who run the gTLD .uk Nicely ICANN have also published the corresponding applicants emails, which are (it can be assumed) now nicely being harvested by SPAM bots.