I have a confession to make.  I have historically been a little sceptical about the role of global “discussion groups” and some of the international debates surrounding Internet issues.  I take it back.

Today, I attended the Parliament and Internet conference and came away feeling inspired and enlightened.  I gained an understanding of why the preservation of self-regulation in the Internet space is so important.  I learned about why and how the IGF was originally established and heard about how this lead to the UK IGF.  I began to truly appreciate why the IGF and its premise of learning from sucess, sharing ideas and debating solutions internationally is a good thing; that not all organizations have to deal in the business of decisions.

The event was very valuable for me, in learning from the successes of parliamentarian and industry debate on the subject of “the Internet”.  I am beginning to more fully appreciate the balance between local priorities, governance and membership issues and the public purpose role of Nominet.  I begin to see how it all fits together.  I believe that we all can continue to learn from success ; as a registry and as its Members, as Internet users and online businesses, by engaging as UK stakeholders in the UK IGF to help shape the future of the Internet and the future of Internet governance.

Some quotes from today’s conference:

Ed Richards (Ofcom) talked about how our traditional “creaking regulatory architecture” is straining under the weight of providing a basis for entirely new and fast moving technologies.  He commented on how this will have to change as we move “from the broadcast era to the Internet age”.

Martha Lane Fox (Digital Inclusion Champion) spoke about Internet technology as a facilitator and the social and economic imperatives for digital inclusion.  She introduced us to the idea of an “intelligent hub” in encouraging peer to peer mentoring, boosting existing schemes and raising awareness.  She emphasized that affordability and accessibility are fundamental to digital inclusion and that the space continues to develop rapidly so we must be prepared strategically for “game changing technology”.

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Timms (MP) now leads the Digital Britain strategy and spoke about minimums such as 2MB broadband as well as his concerns about behavioural advertising.  He also confirmed that the 50p per month tax on landlines would go ahead as part of the implementation of the Digital Britain strategy.

You can read more about the Parliament and Internet Conference here.

At the Oxford Social Media Convention, I met a young man from Nominet UK. Nominet UK registers all top level domains dot.uk.

Nominet UK is a not-for-profit company.  It took a while of clicking around their website to find that out!

That information should be in their footer, shouldn’t it?

This young man told me he was a Trustee and employed by ??? Nominet or a Trust run by Nominet?. Couldn’t find the Trust on the Nominet website so I googled.

There is a Nominet Trust and its institutional framework is clearer.   It is a charity and the information is on the front-page.  I must have been talking to James Kemp.

Here is its purpose

“We will consider funding UK-based and international Internet-related initiatives in the sectors of education, research and development, safety and inclusion.”

What odd wording “we will consider”.

The project must be capable of delivering what is promised.  Shouldn’t we take that for granted?

But this is a link you should remember if you are interested in inclusion and the internet.

AUSWEB BLOG » SSL under attack (again)

uhm i did a whois lookup and i dont like how it shows my address and everything, my number, no no no plz, is tehre a way to change that so it doesnt show that plz! Code: Registrant Contact: Kiefer Anderson () Fax: …

uhm i did a whois lookup and i dont like how it shows my address and everything, my number, no no no plz, is tehre a way to change that so it doesnt show that plz! Code: Registrant Contact: Kiefer Anderson () Fax: …

WHOIS Lookup is a small add-on for Mozilla Firefox that enables you to perform a WHOIS lookup for t.

The way the process works by first getting a whois lookup to admin contact. “They only look for the root of the domain.the don&t give a shit about subdomains,” Marlinspike said. As such a person could get a certificate for a null domain …

uhm i did a whois lookup and i dont like how it shows my address and everything, my number, no no no plz, is tehre a way to change that so it doesnt show that plz! Code: Registrant Contact: Kiefer Anderson () Fax: …

Who Is to Blame for the Google Voice Apps Fiasco?

The fact that Google (s GOOG) Voice apps have been banished by Apple (s AAPL) from its App Store is …

The fact that Google (s GOOG) Voice apps have been banished by Apple (s AAPL) from its App Store is …

Who Is Barack Obama? Posted by Greg Ransom on July 31, 2009. An important new article from former Justice Dept. attorney Andrew McCarthy. Quotable: Before January 20 of this year, Barack Obama had a negligible public record. …

Who Is Barack Obama? Posted by Greg Ransom on July 31, 2009. An important new article from former Justice Dept. attorney Andrew McCarthy. Quotable: Before January 20 of this year, Barack Obama had a negligible public record. …

Who Is Barack Obama? Posted by Greg Ransom on July 31, 2009. An important new article from former Justice Dept. attorney Andrew McCarthy. Quotable: Before January 20 of this year, Barack Obama had a negligible public record. …

Evening everyone,

Many thanks to all those who voted for me and for your congratulations – they are much appreciated!  I’m delighted to have won a seat!  The candidates were very strong this year and I think it was a very close call.  Congratulations to Clive Grace and to Jonathan Robinson – I’m really looking forward to working together with them and the other Board Members during this exciting time in Nominet’s development.

Best wishes,

Nora

A very good morning to you all!

Off to Nominet’s AGM today and to the stakeholder meeting afterwards – hope to see some of you there.  Will update later.  In other news – domain prices on the secondary market are on the increase; first green shoots?  Read more here!

Best wishes,

Nora

Afternoon!

Am so glad the heatwave appears to be over – back to normality!  Don’t think I’m cut out for tropical climes…

Busy day today – just popped on to update on last night.  The Nominet Best Practice Awards event held yesterday evening in London was great!  It was a really valuable opportunity to meet .uk stakeholders with whom I would otherwise have little contact.  The diversity of attendees was remarkable and it was great to see success in areas which so often go overlooked, get recognized in such a meaningful way by Nominet.  The venue was of course, wonderful – I almost gave myself neckstrain looking at the beautiful ceiling at Banqueting hall!  Congratulations to all who participated and of course, special thanks to the Nominet team who did a marvellous job in hosting a very successful evening!

Best wishes,

Nora

Morning all!

Thursday’s my favourite day of the week – Monday is safely but a memory and the whole day seems longer with anticipation of Friday!  As a PAB Member, I’m attending the Nominet Best Practice Event this evening in London – should be a good opportunity to catch up with some of the much-discussed “normal people” and wider stakeholders of .uk – including policy makers, government body representatives, charities, educational agencies and even a few registrars.  Hope to see a few of you there?

I was chatting to some Members yesterday and am keen to learn what YOU would like to see from Non Exec Directors at Nominet?  What attributes and skills other than the necessary ones do you see as important in making your choice? Which of the criteria from the job description do you find “a must” in a Nominet NED?  What aspects of a candidate’s statement do you consider most important in deciding your vote?  Is your voting issues-based?  Or personal?  Or based on your evaluation of the candidate’s ability to do the job and fulfill the criteria outlined in the NED job spec?

Would love to hear your views!  As always, call/email or comment here – would be good to hear from you!

I’ve spoken before about the PAB sometimes being a receptacle for “difficult” issues – the political hot potatoes and revolving doors of Nominet’s policy process; e-crime, phishing, online fraud, child protection online, etc. – the questions to which there are no easy answers.  I sometimes feel that Nominet’s open-ended remit causes more than its fair share of these issues to pile up at the door.

When I work with Pilotlight as part of a consultancy group for UK charities, one of the first and most challenging tasks we undertake with an organization is the re-evaluation of its mission and vision.  Very often, these may have been written when the charity first was founded and may not have changed since!  As a consultant, I encourage organizations to re-evaluate these on an annual basis to reflect the realities of the evolving charity, its aims and changing trends in donor activity and funding allocation.  We just completed the first step of this process with a charity the week before last, and it got me thinking….

Does Nominet’s vision and mission provide clear insight into its objectives and how it plans to achieve them?

Its vision is a “world where the Internet is a trusted space, which everyone can be a part of and has a positive impact…” while its mission is “to make a positive difference to UK Internet users and to shape the development of the Internet”.  That seems quite open-ended and contrasts with some of the other ccTLD registries.  For example, DENIC identifies themselves as “the central registry for all domains under the Top Level Domain .de” and defines its responsibility as “the operation and the technical reliability of an important resource of the German Internet.   As one Member said to me earlier this month:

“With other registries, you know where you are – they manage the TLD, that’s it.  With Nominet, you never know quite where it ends…”

By positioning itself at the “heart” of the Internet in the UK, Nominet is identifiable by many as the go-to agency for all things “e-“.  Judging by parts of the Digital Britain report, the recent Nominet Governance Review, the BERR representative’s address at last year’s Nominet Registrar Day and the constant presence of broad-spectrum issues on for example, the PAB’s agenda, this certainly seems to be the case for Government and for Enterprise bodies.  However, the recent study I commented upon a few weeks ago seems to indicate that for everyone else, for wider stakeholders outside Government and for the average registrant – their registrar is at the “heart” of their experience of online.

As I’ve written before, my view is that Nominet does substantial work with, and uses a lot of resources in, engaging with global entities such as IGF, ICANN and IANA.  This work is vital and while I believe that broad-spectrum topics such as phishing and e-crime should continue to be addressed by Nominet, and cooperation with international policy drivers must continue, I believe that focus should also be placed on issues relating to Nominet’s CORE BUSINESS – i.e. continuing to function as a stable upstream provider for its Members.  I think a bit more clarity and purpose in its mission and vision could help here – perhaps it would be valuable to include boundaries to its remit or detail in its overriding objectives?

Ultimately, I think a vision and mission should explain WHAT the organization’s goal is, and HOW they’re going to achieve it.  Looking at Nominet’s “about us” section, I feel that some additional detail might be helpful in moving forward.  I know many people are skeptical about “visions and mission” but I think words can be pretty powerful and in my experience of working with NFP organizations, I have seen relatively small changes to their mission statement reap wide rewards in terms of clarity, scope and remit.

I believe that by doing so, Nominet could effectively ensure that on top of its responsibilities as a registry, it is not lumbered with the dubious accolade of People’s Choice for policing the web.  By setting limits to its objectives,  providing clarity in how it plans to reach them and evaluating/updating them regularly, Nominet could, in my opinion, strenthen its position as a distinct, respected and impartial voice in shaping the future of .uk.  As Einstein once said, “once we accept our limits, we go beyond them”.

With the dawn of Digital Britain, I think it’s important that Nominet define its role more clearly, communicate its responsibilities more openly and provide guidelines as to its role in the UK’s online! future  What do you think?  What do you think Nominet’s role in Digital Britain should be?  What should Nominet NOT do?  Should they limit themselves to being “just” a registry?  Or embrace the wider responsibilities of managing a key piece of UK digital infrastructure?  As ever, would be delighted to hear from you!

Best wishes,

Nora

Good morning!

I’m on holidays at the moment in East Cork, where it is freakishly warm!  So apologies for the lack of update, but I have to say that broadband access is a bit hard to come by here!  So, I’ve been trying to keep up to date with goings-ons on “list” and thought, rather than laboriously typing responses on the blackberry, I’d type up some stuff here and reply “on-list” later.  Hopefully, the thoughts below will offer a “different” viewpoint and maybe provide a basis for further discussion – let me know what you think!

In regards to pricing – here are my thoughts, as a candidate for the non executive director election at Nominet.

1.  What is the goal of a price change?

From reading the list, I am struggling to decipher the objective of a price change?  Is it to decrease Nominet surplus?  Is it to stem the domain secondary market success?  Is it to make domains more/less available to wider members?  If I were elected, I would first seek to work with the Executive Board to clarify the objective of a price change and then to conduct analysis, centring on:

1.  The impact of a price change on .uk renewal rates

2.  The impact of a price change on Nominet revenue

3.  The impact of a price change on the key stakeholder groups (for the sake of argument, those used in the outreach and consultation rounds for Prof. Garratt’s review – primary market, secondary market, corporate members (non-registrar/domain investor), private members and NFPs (?).  Also, I would propose examining the effects of price changes in domain names on advertising, search engines and IP management companies and webhosting businesses.

As most of you have contacted me asking about my feelings on a price hike, here are my initial feelings:

Impact of a price hike on the Primary Market

A price hike, or a fluctuating pricing model, would render .uk internationally uncompetitive

It wold negatively impact the .uk brand

It would increase the barrier to entry for SoHo’s and SMEs who are seeking to go online

It would ultimately make “online” less accessible

Registrars will concentrate their marketing efforts on more viable TLDs (and those where they get marketing support from registries, but that’s another story)

And new registrations plus renewals of .uk will fall, thus

Ensuring that Nominet’s revenues decrease and

Ensure that any further development of Nominet’s remit would be severely stunted

 Impact of a price hike on the secondary market

In my opinion, a price hike would result in .uk domains increasingly consolidated into portfolios of large pure-play domain investors, as these would be the only ones with the cashflow and revenue buffers to withstand fluctuations in registration and renewal prices, as they have always run their domain investing as a traditional business (in contrast to some smaller investors, or those that do it “part time”). 

Domains will increasingly be owned by international domain investors, whose risk is diversified by their involvement with other TLDs.  This, IMHO, would take business and revenue out of the UK and ultimately stunt national online entrepreneurship.

Domain prices on the secondary market would rise and

Sales volume would fall and

Fluidity in the marketpalce would be negatively impacted by a price hike .

Ultimately, the secondary market would continue to thrive but would do so at an increasingly inaccessible level for the average consumer.  It would be a sellers’ market, with prospective buyers suffering low supply and high prices with negotiations taking longer and transfers becoming more problematic.

The convergence of primary and secondary domain markets is already well underway; as someone on list (Alex?) has already pointed out, most of Nominet’s top twenty members have some form of secondary market interests already and this is on the increase – both internationally and at home.

To conclude, if a price change is the proposed solution to the perceived “problem” of domain investing, I feel it is overly simplistic and likely to be futile, if not counterproductive.  If we are to truly seek to make domains more accessible to all .uk stakeholders, I would rather support the following measures:

1.  Keep prices as they are (depending on analysis)

2.  Encourage fluidity by working on ease of domain transfers (e.g. Auth codes)

3.  Support registrars’ efforts to add value to their product offering

However, as stated, this is simply one perspective – and one that I feel would be of value at Board level, when considered as one proposal among others, which would enable the Executive to benefit from a rounded and balanced perspective.  Putting forward a variety of proposals, possible solutions and viable alternatives, would give the Board and its membership a range of options to choose from, as they seek to build a strong, competitive and realistic strategy for the future of .uk

Yesterday, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published its Digital Britain report.  You can view a copy of it at the BBC here.  There are few surprises, but pages 193-194 contain specific references to the .uk domain space.  I’ll be reading it in full today and commenting here later today – would be, as always, glad to hear from you with your comments and thoughts on the Digitial Britain report.

See you later!

Nora

As part of my role as an elected member of Nominet’s Policy Advisory Body (PAB), I recently wrote a paper for the PAB’s consideration, entitled “The Future of the PAB”.

We’ll be taking the paper forward for discussion at the July meeting, and I’d really like to hear your thoughts.  My view is that the PAB has a huge amount to offer, with a wealth of combined knowledge and expertise, but that its current format does not enable it to realize its full potential in adding real value to Nominet’s policy process. Alternative formats such as issues-driven working groups, expertise pools and debates featuring stakeholder representatives, with more Member outreach, would in my opinion, be of benefit in developing out the role of the PAB to embrace wider stakeholder participation and more rounded input for the policy recommendations we make to the Board.

Do you know what the PAB is?  What’s your experience or opinion of the PAB’s work?  Let me know what you think – I’d love to hear from you!.

The Future of the PAB (Nora Nanayakkara)

From the Governance Review Paper:

Nominet does make provision for some participation by stakeholders in its affairs via the Policy Advisory Body. However, this body is not referred to in the constitution, and at least in theory it could be ignored by the Board. It would be logical for the body (such as the PAB) representing members in the governance to have a more substantial role, so that it can play a greater part in the overall governance. The composition of the Policy Advisory Body is itself dominated by members (ten out of eighteen). Furthermore, the rules governing the PAB appear to be subject to the approval of the Board (which is dominated by members of Nominet). These arrangements are not conducive to allowing other voices and constituencies to be heard.

The recent published governance review has highlighted several shortfalls within the Nominet structure that result in the perceived inadequate representation of the divergent Nominet stakeholder voices.  One among these is the PAB.  Having read the report, spoken with a variety of stakeholders and analysed previously published Nominet papers (Governance Review 2006, Composition of the PAB paper) I feel now is a good time to explore the future of the PAB.

I believe the current structure, scope and composition of the PAB represents several key issues:

1. Nominet’s membership appears to have “electorate fatigue” with the PAB, which affects both its engagement with the PAB and the future quality and quantity of members standing for election
2. This in turn theoretically facilitates people standing for election on the basis of self-interest or voicing own opinions rather than that of the wider community for the long term good of Nominet, which can be reflected in a lack of diversity of appropriate experience.
3. PAB discussions can focus on very specialist topics, rather than on broad-interest, strategic policies.  These often veer toward rather pedantic and operational considerations and away from the vision and mission of the PAB.
4. The PAB in its current format is viewed by some as “irrelevant”, “lacking teeth”, while its role is described as “navel gazing” with some members reporting a lack of “payback” for PAB involvement (2009 Nominet governance review) – this again reflected in election statistics.  Its lack of visibility and the lack of stakeholder understanding of the PAB’s role and purpose is underscored by a study undertaken at Internet World, which found that out of 250 interviewees, just under 8% had heard of the Nominet PAB.
5. The PAB’s scope is constantly in flux and its remit is too fluid.  This lack of structure and the ambiguity of the PAB’s stated purpose could cause the PAB to become a dumping ground for undesirable issues, which can be discussed in a “harmless” environment for appearance’s sake.
6. The PAB currently fails to represent several key stakeholder groups (e.g. advertising, charity, registrars (small, medium and large), “silver surfers”, online retail, social networking, etc. )
7. The PAB does not engage in meaningful, formalized stakeholder research/surveying  -this was a conscious decision made some time ago, I believe.

I would therefore like to ask the PAB to consider the notion that the PAB in its current format and composition no longer adequately meet the needs of the organization and its membership.  I ask the PAB to critically evaluate if we are completely representational of the current .uk namespace and in particular, of its commercial uses (outside of primary and secondary market).

The PAB’s original function, I believe, was to add value to Nominet’s policy process – i.e. to reach beyond consultations, Nom-steer and Nominet outreach events and to consider broad policy issues from the viewpoint of all member sectors – especially those not traditionally reached by the core outreach initiatives.  It is my belief that we are now in a situation where we need to think radically and to challenge ourselves to consider how we are to achieve that value for Nominet and its membership going forward.

I propose that we grab the opportunity posed by the governance review to re-evaluate the PAB as a value adding construct by exploring meaningful and realistic ways to improve the PAB’s structure, purpose and profile so that it is prepared to meet the challenges posed by likely changes to Nominet, its members and the constantly evolving .uk namespace.

I would like to suggest a working group to consider the following

1. How does the PAB add value to Nominet’s policy process?
2. The remit of Nominet’s PAB
3. A clear vision and mission for Nominet’s PAB, for the Board’s consideration
4. A recommendation for future PAB composition (elected/appointed)
5. Alternative PAB structures for suggestion, for example:
   1. Subgroups/working groups
   2. Expertise pool
   3. Member segment representatives (declared affiliations)
   4. Benchmarking against relevant advisory committees (e.g. ccTLDs, organizations from governance review)
   5. Collaborating with Nominet HR on architecting PAB Job descriptions and requirements
   6. Visibility of the PAB
      1. Stakeholder engagement for the PAB
      2. Target-setting and KPIs for PAB

I fully support and share Nominet’s vision of shaping the internet to ensure it has a positive impact on its end-users. Internet self regulation is a realistic target as, ultimately, the needs of end users should be at the heart of the .uk industry. A great step towards this is to ensure any regulatory board includes members who can understand and engage with all end users, ensuring other industry voices are heard in addiiton to government and small business. If Nominet’s vision is to be successfully met, it will be important to ensure registrar and other key-contributor-members are not isolated as they are so integral to the domain application process!

Nominet does substantial work with, and uses a lot of resources engaging with global entities such as IGF, ICANN and IANA.  This work is vital and while such international policy dialogue is good in theory, it will need to be broken down and reapplied locally here in the UK so that it successfully engages with the demands of the members.  Registrar members and other Nominet members can really measure the effect of internationally-driven policies on end users and will be able to provide valuable feedback on how to best review current process. I believe this would be best achieved at Nominet through more registrar meetings, more senior-level feedback sessions with large members and the inclusion of board members who understand the pressures that registrars and end users face online.

Prof. Garrett’s recent governance review pointed out skills gaps in the current Nominet board.  My work with Pilotlight, United Internet and my MBA studies, have shown me that this is a common but surmountable obstacle faced by many, particularly not-for-profit /cost recovery organizations.  It is imperative for strategic growth that these gaps are filled and more importantly in my opinion, that the newly appointed non-exec directors enable the board to appreciate a 360 degree view of the .uk space.  It is my experience of Nominet that the Board does excellent work with government bodies, small business groups and political entities, but falls somewhat short on the “real” drivers of the Internet in 2009 – advertising, media, social networking, online retail and of course, domain registration/webhosting.

I ultimately feel that Nominet currently struggles to connect in a meaningful way with its Members (particularly with the top segment, most of whom have interests in the areas mentioned above) and this has in the past, been reflected by difficulties in carrying motions that are vital for the strategic development of the organization.  If elected to the Board, I will do my utmost to balance the attention paid to global issues with a focus on local Member issues, which have real impact on the businesses and bottom lines of Nominet’s membership.

I believe that while broad-spectrum topics such as phishing and e-crime should continue to be addressed by Nominet, and cooperation with international policy drivers must continue, focus should also be placed on issues such as ever-tightening registrar margins, reductions in renewal rates, ever less profitable web hosting and constricting online adpsend. Alongside tackling some challenging governance issues, addressing these key areas in a meaningful way will help all Nominet members and tagholders, and in turn, the end users to harness the power of .uk.

According to a recent survey on the effects of liberalizing the Internet through new TLDs, 18% of survey respondants believed that their registrar should govern the “new look Internet”, while the same number believe that ICANN should be responsible for the distribution of new TLDs.  Some believe the UK government should decide who can have a new TLD and 12% say it’s down to “society”.  There was no mention of Nominet.

This really made me think about Nominet’s visibility with the much-touted “wider stakeholder community” and about endusers’ perceptions of a registrar/webhosting company’s responsibilities.  It seems to me that a high percentage of the wider stakeholder community appears to view their registrar/webhosting company as having a key role in their experience of “online”.  The vast majority would have registered their domains with a registrar/webhost and not with a registry and so, are quick to link registration and domain issues with their domain supplier.  This is, of course, not surprising.  What does surpise me however, is that despite this, almost one fifth of respondants were quick to point the finger at ICANN in the international arena, but their registrar/webhost on a national level – they appear to have had no exposure to the managing body of .uk; Nominet.

This report, underlined for me, the key role that registrars and webhosts play in the .uk space.  They operate at the coalface of Nominet’s target demographic (endusers, wider stakeholder community), they absorb all the associated costs of such interaction (hypercompetition in registration and webhost prices, inflating staff costs, hosting costs, etc.), they are deemed to be responsible for wider issues by the registrants as this survey underscores, and yet they are, in my opinion, underrepresented in the decision-making and policy-forming structures at Nominet.

If Nominet are to ensure wide stakeholder representation and involvement in policy decisions moving forward, they are going to need to find a scaleable and efficient way of achieving this interaction.  It is my opinion that Nominet could leverage their registrar membership very effectively in this area and that registrar interests should be represented at Board level if they are to truly succeed in reaching out to the endusers of .uk and to reflect the needs and realities of the .uk registrant base in their policies and strategy.

Verisign released their Q2 domain industry report today, which contained news that  the number of websites has reached more than 180 million, which is a 12% growth on Q2 last year!

It’s interesting to note how Verisign now describes a website as:

“having multiple pages or one-page Web sites. One-page Websites include under-construction, brochure-ware and parked pages in addition to online advertising revenue generating parked pages”.

They used to distinguish between multi-page sites (which they termed “live” sites) and PPC or one-page landers.  For example, in their Q1 2007 report,Verisign reported that 63% of resolving .com and .net domains returned the former, while 23% were parked pages.

I suppose the Verisign report reflects the evolution of the internet landscpe, diversification of domain usage and our changing attitudes to different forms of domain development.  A cynic might draw other conclusions, but let’s stop there I wonder what the next report will hold?

The report can be found here: http://www.verisign.com/static/DNIB_09_0529web.pdf and Nominet’s annual domain name report is here: http://www.nominet.org.uk/intelligence/industryreport/

In other news, Iraq is seeking the .iq extension and the US government has finally confirmed that it plans to digitally sign the internet’s root zone by the end of the year.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/04/dnssec_coming/

http://www.net4now.com/?p=2131

See you tomorrow!

Nora

Since the beginning of jelly, we have had an in-house team of super-artists; artists who can replicate any style, who can discreetly edit images, produce artwork to often the most impossible of client deadlines, and are always on hand to help us at our times of desperate need…

A once secret bunch of folk hidden under the cloak of “jelly house” , they are slowly starting to emerge into the limelight.  We are proud to introduce you to our artist, once described as a “superhero” by Phil at Presky Maves:

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire… Tony Wilson.

The following links show some examples of his work:
jelly turns soft and cuddly!
Pastiche, you say?
jelly house brightens CSMA club
Business Superbrands
nominet illustration

In the beginning there was the word and then it was quickly copyrighted with a  ©. In 2001, we attempted to free the content and added another “c” and called this “Creative Commons”. Whereas © indicated that rights were restricted, the CC symbol explained what rights the user could have. However, both © and CC assume that (A) the user audience understands these symbols and their implications and (B) will abide by them.

In the education sector, policymakers are embracing open content, typically referred to as “open educational resources” or “OERs”, often licensed under Creative Commons or similar schemes. This makes absolute sense – why pay for content when the education community are developing resources already “for free”? Some of these OERs are of high quality and educators often prefer using content created by other educators. This perspective is fine however someone is paying for the development of OERs (their use may be free but there is a cost of development). The budget for MIT OCW was/is apparently over €2million per annum. How does it cost so much? Actually, I can understand this type of cost – you need professional staff, technology and other support services. Who pays for it? There are a variety of models including endowments, membership fees, sponsorship, donations, research grants etc. And governments. So although the outcome is OERs, there is still an investment – its just not by “commercial publishers”. Giving content away for free doesn’t solve the fundamental problem that commercial publishers also face – many, if not most, educators do not have the capabilities required to engage with digital content to get the signficant outcomes we all believe can be achieved. 

So, does the content sector need more “c”s? Absolutely. At least three more – Content Capability Capacity-building. Ok, there’s a ”b” in there but let’s not quibble. The open content and commercial content publishers have to put aside their intellectual property debates to focus on developing educator capabilities related to content. What are they?

• How to discover content?
• How to evaluate content?
• How to license/procure content?
• How to download/install content?
• How to modify content?
• How to use content?
• How to (re)package content?
• How to describe content?
• How to apply licenses to content?
• How to expose content?
• How to retract content? 

It’s easy to criticise but I am, as they say, in the tent. Recently, DCU LINK and Cambridge University Press started a new project as part of the Global Grid for Learning initiative with partial funding from the Nominet Trust.  The aim of the project is to create a series of learning opportunities to kickstart content capacity building. Our approach is to use a synchronous learning platform, like Adobe Connect or Wimba, and make this platform available to volunteers to deliver pre-approved modules on topics such as those listed above. Participation in the online sessions will be free and all sessions will be recorded and made available for free as learning objects through the Global Grid for Learning project and other partners. Please email me if you would be interested in giving up some time to prepare and deliver a module – theo.lynn@dcu.ie. We welcome commercial publishers, content-related software vendors, trainers, teachers, lecturers from both worlds, the commercial and open content.

Oh yes, the license for these learning objects?  Creative Commons-Attribiution-Noncommercial-Share Alike.

Neues zu den o. g. Domain-TLDs gibt es bei domain-recht.de:

Und hier einige nach meiner Meinung wichtige Passagen daraus:

“Juristische Urteilssammlungen sind äußerst beliebt, verschaffen sie doch einen verbindlichen Eindruck von der Rechtslage. Umso erfreulicher, dass Nominet sein Entscheidungsarchiv für .uk-Domains um eine nützliche Suchfunktion ergänzt hat.”

“Die britische Domain-Verwaltung Nominet hat die Suchmaschine für Entscheidungen nach dem Streitschlichtungsangebot Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) überarbeitet und erweitert. Ab sofort erstreckt sich die Suche auch auf den Volltext der Entscheidungen, so dass nach spezifischen Stichwörtern gesucht werden kann, um daraus Informationen über die Rechtsprechung des Gerichts zu finden.”

“China hat nach Presseberichten damit begonnen, die Top Level Domain .china in ausschließlich chinesischen Schriftzeichen zu bewerben. Demnach hat Anfang Mai 2009 eine landesweite Kampagne begonnen, in deren Rahmen 90 Prozent aller Regierungseinrichtungen ab der Ebene der Provinzen, 95 Prozent der traditionellen Medienangebote, über 90 Prozent der technischen Universitäten und über 40 Prozent der 500 größten Unternehmen Chinas ihre eigene .china-Domain registriert haben. Erwartet wird, dass innerhalb der nächsten zwei Jahre alle nahmhaften chinesischen Internetangebote unter .china vertreten sind.”

“Dot TK, kommerzieller Verwalter der Landesendung .tk (Tokelau), sorgt mit einer Pressemeldung für Verwirrung. Die mit der Schlagzeile “Dot TK registriert den 15millionsten Domain-Namen” überschriebene Meldung erweckt den Eindruck, als gäbe es 15 Millionen .tk-Domains – für das im Südpazifik gelegene Inselatoll mit knapp 1.500 Einwohnern eine Rekordzahl, die sogar die bisher führenden Endungen .cn (13,6 Mio.) sowie .de (12,8 Mio.) übertreffen würde.”

Quelle: domain-recht.de

Provided by CommunityDNS, the information in this post consists of news items in the security-based Internet community.

Hackers hijack DNS records of high profile New Zealand sites

Through an SQL injection into the New Zealand-based registrar Domainz.net the DNS records for New Zealand’s high profile sites were hijacked, taking users to an image of a pied Bill Gates and anti-war messages.

Click here for more information.

Nominet governance review questions not-for-profit status

A corporate governance expert has recommended the non-profit’s members and executives hold a “constitutional conference” to avoid regulation. Without “voluntary” reform to the .UK registry, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform would feel “obliged to intervene”.

At stake is whether the organization relinquish its not-for-profit status. Also, recommendations are to lower voting hurdles to make constitutional changes and that the board should offer more representation for non-members. Also included are better oversight of executive pay.

It is also recommended that the board be able to appoint two non-executive board members. A previous vote on this topic failed due to fears it would place too much power in the hands of current Chariman Bob Gilbert and current CEO Lesley Cowley.

Click here for more information.
Click here for recommendations.
Click here for Nominet’s response.

Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project

The Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project was breached by hackers, downloading terabytes of data containing design information about the Defense Department’s costliest weapons program. The program’s most sensitive data remains untouched as they resided on computers isolated from the Internet.

The breech seems to have begun in 2007 and continued into 2008. Of interest were the plane’s design, performance statistics, electronic systems. The system compromised was responsible for the plane’s maintenance problems during flight.

Further potential for compromise is possible since allies are involved in the design. Once breech was discovered in Turkey and another from an undisclosed country. The main attack appeared to originate in China, however the person, or organization, may have used China as the point of the attack’s traceable origin.

Click here for more information.

Twitter, WordPress execs in Iraq to help country use new media

As part of a U.S. State Department delegation, executives of WordPress, Twitter, Google, AT&T and YouTube, among others, are meeting in Iraq with officials from public and private sectors to build upon anti-corruption efforts, promote critical thinking in the classroom and scale-up civil society.

Five percent of Iraqis have Internet to the home, however Internet connections are hampered by “sabotage missions”. As a result many more Iraqis gain access to the Internet from Internet cafes and through their mobile phones. Texting use is significant in Iraq.

Side question, though in the initial discussions, what exposures will such services bring?

Click here for more information.

MS lifts Kimono on Windows 7 security features

To coincide with RSA conference, Microsoft has unveiled a more detailed list of the security features of the next version of Microsoft’s OS.

Some of the features include remote access, biometric integration and services being extended to cover USB drives.

Click here for more information.
Click here for full list of security features.
Click here for a summary version of the security features.

Spy chiefs size up net snoop gear

The U.K’s foreign minister has confirmed the possibility of installing technology that would, on-demand, allow tapping of all communications over the Internet. The technology could be used by the intelligence services and law enforcement.

Such technology would be used to create an extensive repository of communications traffic data and the interception of the content of Internet communications.

Today major ISPs and telecoms already retain much of this data, whereas others do not. Also, many e-mail, VoIP, instant messaging and social networking services retain little information.

Estimated costs for the U.K. specific program? 12 billion pounds.

Click here for more information.

After reading Julia’s post which eventually geared me towards this article on the Register, I was annoyed to read the comments of some readers. I strongly felt I HAD  to clarify some things, so I commented too.

It is hard to take in comments like the one made by Ron Green. But I guess this is how we, domainers, are seen from the outside world . (Yes, it is an outside world if you are not into domaining). It’s the harsh truth.

I am tired of people associating domaining with cybersquatting . Domainers need a re-branding. An urgent one. You can start right now, it’s not going to be easy, but I believe it can be done.

If every domainer makes a common effort, to inform people around them about the industry , explain domaining to them, stop/condemn those who register trademark names in bad faith, stop bickering about each other’s portfolio and focus on theirs and ways to make the world know who we are,

we would all be winners.

I will defend domainers everytime I read/hear BS* about this community.

Ritz

Oxford, England based “dot UK” root domain name registry Nominet (a not for profit organisation) has this week been thrown into further turmoil as controversially elected nominet board member and leading IP attorney Jim Davies wrote to the board demanding the resignation of both the CEO Lesley Cowley and Chairman Bob Gilbert. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the situation has now gone to defcon1 after fellow nominet non-executive director Angus Hanton resigned citing his unhappiness “about how the company is being run”.

Nominet UK was founded in 1996 by Dr Black to take over the license and responsibility for running the UK’s domain name space. Nominet replaced the former “naming committee”, who at the time could no longer deal with the volume of registrations that were then being required.

Nominet is a “not for profit” UK company limited by guarantee. In essence this means that it does not have shareholders, instead having members who act as its guarantors. Not having shareholders and being “not for profit” is and has always been the main sticking point and the somewhat bone of contention for many of its members. Being not for profit, any surplus revenue (of which nominet has accumulated millions over the years), has legally nowhere to go. Members also question the amount nominet charges for domain registrations and the accountability for its own costs

In his letter of the 10th November Davies calls upon the CEO (lesley Cowley) and Chairman (Bob Gilbert) to resign as “You are unelected. In my view, as an independent Non-Executive Director, you are both unsuited to carry on in your roles. I do not believe that it is in the best interests of the company – nor of the UK Internet – for you to remain on the Board”.

Davies argues that both the CEO and Chairman should, like other board positions, be elected roles decided upon by the membership “I call upon you and the CEO to either resign; or to be put forward under a Companies Act s168 motion to remove you – so that the membership can review your records and decide whether they want to retain you. If the members decided to keep you and the CEO in situ, I would find it impossible to remain on the Board and would resign at that time”.

Hanton writes in his resignation letter of yesterday “I do not believe Bob Gilbert and Lesley Cowley are the right people to lead Nominet at this point and I agree that their positions should be put to an immediate member vote”.

A leading UK registrar who wishes to remain anonymous has since said “Nominet are a law unto themselves. They [nominet] have tens of millions of pounds in surplus revenue and have unelected people running it who use this money as if it were their own. They pay themselves exorbitant salaries and no-one understands what exactly they do for it. Nominet, after all, don’t exactly have to sell themselves [to their customers]“

Earlier this year Nominet failed in its attempt to install a new resolution to its constitution that would in essence allow it to become more self governing. Resolution No 6 was said to be required (by the board at nominet) to prevent the company being taken over by parties who would act in their own interests. However, members felt it was simply a move to give greater power to its executive board and thus reduce member influence. This also seems to be some of the reasoning behind Hanton’s departure ” The company is meant to be controlled by, and answerable to, its membership as well as having duties to the wider community. My firm impression is that some other directors would like to eliminate the membership’s control of the organisation and are not committed to the company’s not-for-profit objectives.”

Davies has long been an opposer of Nominet – and his election earlier this year to their board was publicly opposed [pre election] by nominet – he has campaigned to lower the fees nominet charges for domain registrations, is opposed to the way nominet handles domain disputes through its DRS service and was an avid opposer of resolution number 6.

Clearly having tens of millions of pounds sat in the bank which no-one owns would clearly ruffle anyones feathers and this spat doesnt look like going away anyday soon.

Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has told a Hansard Society conference on disengagement that political bloggers’ main area of interest is “unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy”.

She said, “The most popular blogs are right-wing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes.”

Top UK political blogger, Guido, denies this charge and rightly states that we should “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” (My criticism of Guido’s site is the depressingly poor language in many of the comments which is likely to give a bad impression.)

Iain Dale can be heard taking to Hazel Blears on PM with Eddie Mair on Radio 4. You can listen to it here – it is 49 minutes in and lasts a few minutes.

Quite bizarrely, she says, “you can only have that kind of grown-up political discourse where people are prepared to listen.”

Woman, the reason I started this website is because YOU WOULDN’T LISTEN! Not only wouldn’t you listen to the calls for a referendum on the EU Treaty, but you lied when you promised you would give us one.

One way or another, people will have their say and just because a government doesn’t like what is being discussed, won’t stop people.

They can make it more difficult and they intend to. Not only have they made it more difficult to protest, but now they are after censoring the internet because they hate free speech so much.

One step being looked at by Peter Mandelson and his department is grabbing Nominet, the registrar for dot uk domain names.

The Government/EU (same thing) could then decide who is too much of a danger to be allowed a domain name – like the people Hazel Blears doesn’t like.

Things aren’t as bad as they are in China, yet, but the dangers are mounting in the UK, North America and many other places [map].

Earlier this year, a masters student at the University of Nottingham and his teacher were arrested and held for six days under the Terrorism Act under suspicion of possessing extremist material. He had been studying terrorism for his dissertation.

The “crime,” by the way, was downloading an edited version of the al-Qaeda handbook from a US government website.

Just announced is a Government plan to monitor internet traffic, where raw data from every email sent and website visited would be collected and stored in ‘black boxes’ before being transferred to a giant central database.

Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has described it as a “step too far”.

Back at the ‘conference on disengagement’ and Blears sounded like she was trying to convince the nation’s non-bloggers with condescending remarks like:

“But mostly, political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians,” and

“Unless and until political blogging ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new and disparate voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and pessimism.”

My site might well be full of cynicism and pessimism, but only because of Hazel and the rest of the nuts.

BUT, I am also optimistic that the people will bring down this government at the next election and those millions of bloggers will hopefully vote for a candidate who will recognise our right to express ourselves freely on the internet – and they are not likely to be Labour candidates (hence the panic).

And another thing, there are always going to be, let’s call them mavericks, in the blogosphere. Hardly surprising, as there are millions of us, but a great many people spend their time and money to put across their point of view because they care. They care far, far more than the government about this country and our fellow beings – and it is now very clear how much Blear’s party is held in contempt for their sickening treachery.

And Hazel Blears – I am not left wing or right wing – I am a human being.

So following on from the last post I thought I’d try it out on the recent ad we created for Nominet. Beautiful, don’t you think?

The Nominet www.keepyour.co.uk ad