Nominet bitch slaps self over domaining

by Brian Turner

Nominet directors are involved in a fight among themselves, resulting in the resignation of non-executive director Angus Hanton.

Interestingly enough, while Angus accuses Nominet – among other things – of not properly looking after uses, Angus, just happens to be a domainer.
If you don’t know, domaining is the process of buying nice sounding domain names, slapping a landing page filled with ads on, and then waiting to generate revenues from people clicking on the ads after typing the sites URL – or else from selling the domain at an inflated price when someone actually wants to develop a useful website on it.

You can see an example here. Familiar now?

While boardroom arguments are hardly a new thing, what really gets my eyeballs is the fact Nominet had a domainer advising on the board.

And according to The Register:

In the Nominet boardroom, Hanton has been most closely allied with Jim Davies, a solicitor elected in May 2008 who has frequently acted for domainers. On Monday this week Davies called on CEO Cowley and and Chairman Gilbert to face a vote of confidence from members. The Nominet executive counters that Davies has significant conflicts of interest and has refused to sign a declaration that he will act in the best interests of all Nominet members and the wider UK internet.

Now there’s a comforting thought – domainers and their lawyers were trying to encourage Nominet to a certain point of view, but were pushed back?

I can only hope the ordinary website building user remains very much a focus for Nominet.

After all, domainers have leeched enough internet real estate through sheer speculation, against the interests of ordinary web users. Heaven forbid that a registrar would ever sympathise with their business plan.

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Posted in: Internet