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The co.uk registry operator, Nominet, has enabled a new feature to help fight phishing and other domain abuse.

The new "Phishing Lock" enables registrars, such as ourselves, to lockdown domains suspected of abusive use eg. phishing etc.,

A domain may now be marked as being used in abusive activities and completely locked down to prevent dns changes etc.,

More details on the Nominet site

There are several "hot" topics in the domain world at the moment. The introduction of new gTLDs, which I have touched on, is one, while the introduction of IDN (internationalised domain names) is another.

For most of this site's readers IDN isn't that important.

Most of our clients, with some exceptions, are English speakers.

Of course the world is not an English speaking world, even if some people would like people to think it was.

So what exactly is this IDN stuff?

In simple terms IDN allows you to put non-ASCII characters into a domain. A very obvious example would be an accent. In the Irish language, for example, a lot of people's names and place names have accents, but at present you cannot register domains WITH the accent.

Of course accents are only the tip of the iceberg.

Imagine being able to register domain names in Cyrillic? Or place names in kanji?

So which TLDs support IDN?

That's a very good question!
There are mixed levels of support among the gTLD operators. There seems to be a higher level of "real" activity within the ccTLD world.
You can, however, peruse the resources on the Verisign site.

So which ccTLDs support IDN?

There's a list over on Wikipedia, though I'm not sure how accurate it is (wikipedia is very useful, but you can never be too sure how reliable the information is)

Eurid are talking about introducing IDN for the .eu namespace, but we can expect that to take at least another 12 to 18 months before there is anything for users. (See Stephane's recent post which is more optimistic)

IEDR like to say that they are ready to introduce IDN, but haven't made any move to do so even though they have been asked about it more than once in the past. (They're waiting on "a positive indication of market interest" whatever that is)

Nominet on the other hand has devoted time and resources to IDN


Whether IDN will become widely available in 2009 or 2019 is moot. It's on the way and when it gets here it will open up a whole range of exciting opportunties for people whose language is not English

Of course it also opens up a whole range of new problems as well, but doesn't everything?

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• Don't Get Ripped Off When You Want To Change Registrar
• Domain Registrations On The Increase According To Verisign
• Nominet - Over 7 Million Names Registered

I'm a very strong believer in letting people move their domains and hosting around as much as they want.

Unfortunately some people do not share my philosophy and prefer to hold their registrants to ransom.

While I've already written about .ie domain transfers and those of .com, I hadn't gone into much detail on co.uk domains.

Let's be completely transparent about costs.

We are a Nominet registrar, so we pay Nominet £5 (sterling) to register domains for 2 years. In turn we charge registrants €8. Depending on the currency rates our margin per domain will vary and we also have our Nominet membership fees to factor in. Yes. We do make money on each and every co.uk registration and renewal, but we're a business not a charity.

Now when it comes to moving a co.uk domain from one registrar to another Nominet's system is a little different.

With most ccTLDs and gTLDs the registrant requests that the new registrar takeover the domain (pull) , while with Nominet's system the losing registrar has to hand the domain over to a competitor (push). However  Nominet does not charge the registrar for this change ie. it is free and takes only seconds to complete. All the current registrar needs is the IPS tag of the new registrar and the domains to push. It couldn't be simpler really.

Or could it?

Well some people's business model seems to rely heavily on overcharging clients for just about everything.

While I have no issue with charging for things that cost money to provide I find it abhorrent to charge people who want to change provider. If they're changing provider there maybe an issue with the service we're providing (or not) so why make a bad situation worse?

Fortunately there is light at the end of the tunnel.

All owners (registrants) of co.uk domains have access to Nominet's online services system. Under normal circumstances the online system allows you to manage your contact details and conduct basic maintenance on your domain portfolio, however it also allows you to transfer domain ownership and change registrars if you so choose (for a fee).
Nominet charge £11.75 (including VAT) to retag (transfer) any number of *.uk domains for a registrant. So if you want to move 1 domain or 500 domains the fee will be the same.

Don't be held ransom!

If your domain matters to you choose a registrar you are happy with.

(We don't charge anything to retag *.uk domains - we don't get charged, so why would we charge you??)


 

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• Nominet - Over 7 Million Names Registered

Nominet, of which we are members, announced a few days ago that they had passed the 7 million domain mark.

While that figure alone is impressive, it's even more impressive when you consider that they only hit the 6 million mark in 2007!

The strong growth in registrations in the UK namespace is interesting to watch and Nominet aren't afraid to share quite a lot of their statistics with the public.

In common with a lot of ccTLDs (country code top level domains), there are several specific namespaces (second level)  within *.uk for particular types of organisation. While the most popular is co.uk, which has no restrictions, there are several other second level domains available:

• co.uk - general / business - no restriction and the most popular
  
• org.uk - non-profit - no restriction
• me.uk - individuals - no restriction
• ltd.uk - UK Limited Company - restricted - UK company details
• plc.uk - UK PLC - restricted
• net.uk - restricted - only open to UK ISPs
  
• sch.uk - restricted - only open to UK schools

Looking at the montly statistics available from Nominet it's pretty obvious which second levels are popular.

For the month of July, for example, there were a mere 46 names registered in sch.uk, compared to 135136 co.uk registrations. If you want to put that in perspective, the entire IE namespace is just over 100 thousand domains (108724 names at time of writing)

On a sidenote, the figures do not show how many of the registrations are "virgin" territory and how many are re-registrations ie. names that have gone through the registry's deletion process.

One of the things that people really really hated about our old order system was the lack of a bulk order option for domains.

Our nice new shiny order system solves this issue once and for all!

You can now order up to 100 domains at once via our new bulk order system.

We're also adding support for more TLDs to the website order system. We don't want to play email ping pong with you anymore than you do!

ICANN's 32nd International public meeting opened in Paris yesterday morning.

There are several hot topics on the agenda and judging by the crowds of people at last night's welcome cocktail, attendance levels are good.

If you're interested in finding out more head over to the meeting's official site where you can find details of meetings, talks, presentations and more.

The areas that are bound to attract attention this week are quite diverse and encompass topics such as new TLDs, the launch of .tel (dottel), Whois (again!), registry failover, the registrar agreement and both IDNs and IPv6. (Can you say "acronym hell"??)

Of course no ICANN meeting would be complete without an equally busy social agenda and last night's welcome cocktail at La Defense (photo above) was no different. Wednesday's gala dinner is being held in yet another famous Parisian landmark (more on that Thursday I hope!)

At times I feel like I'm a broken record. I keep finding myself saying the same thing to people, possibly using different words or turns of phrase, but the message is essentially the same.

If you register a domain name and pay for it you have certain rights. Of course you also have certain obligations, but most of them aren't particularly cumbersome.

What I wrote last year still hold true.

Basics:

You are entitled to access to your EPP key for your .com without paying a fee. Registrars should provide that to you in a timely fashion.

If you want to transfer the billing of a .ie domain you DO NOT need to deal with the original IEDR reseller. If you only want to move the hosting you DO NOT need to move the actual billing.

If you want to move your hosting you should be able to do so.

Unfortunately there are no clear guidelines from ICANN mandating how resellers should handle things, so you may need to refer back to the actual registrar that the reseller is using if you run into issues.

We recently had yet another issue with a particular UK company that refuses to handover clients' domains without levying a wholly unreasonable fee. If that happens to you you should try reporting them to their upstream registrar who may be in a position to take action against them.

Another "old chestnut" is the unreasonable locking of domains by some registrars after a domain has changed hands. While the argument that it is to prevent "hijacking" holds some water it's also rather "convenient" for them, as they often get another year's registration fees from clients as a result of the restriction.

ICANN recently clarified a very important policy point - inter-registrar transfers. Hopefully this will be on the agenda at the next ICANN meeting, which is scheduled for June in Paris.

The key point raised is worth repeating here:

A registrant change to Whois information is not a valid basis for denying a transfer request.

One very large US based registrar has been denying transfers for a long time based on this. I won't name them, but it doesn't take a lot of work to find out who they are.

Journalists call from time to time asking me to talk about various internet related topics. Most of the time the publications or shows are "general interest", so you can only talk about very general things.

Last night, however, was quite different, as I was one of the guests on "Domain Masters" which is broadcast and streamed weekly at 7pm EST (11pm in Ireland, midnight CET)

The show's host last night was my good friend Jothan Frakes who is one of the domain name industry's gurus.

Although I was very nervous (which probably showed!) we had a nice chat about Blacknight, domains and the internet industry.

If anyone wants to hear the show there should be an mp3 version available on the WebmasterRadio site at some time over the next couple of days.

UPDATE: The Mp3 from last night is now available on the site http://www.webmasterradio.fm/Internet-Marketing/Domain-Masters/Geo-Domain-Expo-and-BlackKnight.htm

UPDATE 2: Of course if I provided proper hyperlinks people might be actually able to use them!
So here you go: Show details including podcast

As a domain registrant you have certain rights. Unfortunately those rights can be abused by companies that don't believe in ethical business practices.

It would be nice and simple if the whois display were the same across all TLDs (ie. domain extensions), but they're not.

A basic right is for the domain to be registered to you and under your control.

That means that the domain details should show yours. For example a .ie domain registered to me shows:

status: Active
nserver: NS.BLACKNIGHTSOLUTIONS.COM
nserver: NS2.BLACKNIGHTSOLUTIONS.COM
source: IEDR

person: Michele Neylon
nic-hdl: ABG182-IEDR
source: IEDR

person: Blacknight.ie Hostmaster
nic-hdl: AAM456-IEDR
source: IEDR

(I'm only showing the contact parts)
The administrative contact for the domain is clearly listed as me, while the second contact (tech-c) shows Blacknight, as I obviously register my domains with my own company.

For some TLDs, such as .eu the command line whois will give out varying amounts of information and you may need to go to the web based whois server to get the full details.

In either case the registrant is listed somewhere, even if the public cannot see it easily.

If the registrant wants to move their domain between registrars that is their right.

Under ICANN rules registrars are obliged to provide the EPP codes to registrants in a timely fashion (bearing in mind that you cannot transfer newly registered .com's etc., between registrars immediately)

If they want to update their domain's nameservers then they should be able to do so.

Unfortunately this does not happen.

The reality is that a disproportionate number of companies are denying registrants basic rights.

In some cases they may be doing this by accident, but in other cases it is 100% deliberate.

There is no valid reason for your web designer or developer to put their details all over your domain. None.

If you have asked your designer / developer to register a domain for you and paid them for it then it should be registered to you (which is one of the reasons why .ie domains are attractive!).

Over the past couple of years I've seen some crazy things, including a particular "registrar" that registers ALL .co.uk domains to themselves regardless of who has requested the domain.

Another company warehoused hundreds of .eu domains "on behalf" of their clients ie. in the hope that the clients would want to register the domains at some point in the future. Of course it wasn't clear if they would be charged a premium for this "service".

If a provider won't update the DNS for a domain then there is something wrong somewhere.

(If they can't update it due to the DNS not being loaded that is the registrant or their provider's issue!)

There's no good reason to delay handing over an EPP key.

If a registrant wants their co.uk domain retagged simply do it.

Why make people suffer?

As we are active members of Nominet, the .uk registry, we often have to modify, renew etc., domains on our account.

While it might be possible for each and every member of our staff to become intimate with the specific commands necessary to interface with the registry's systems it would be a bit unrealistic. Our staff have enough on their plates!

So just over a year ago I asked one of our technical staff to do up a simple, easy to use, web interface for non-technical staff to use.

Over a year later it's been re-written several times and now supports most of the Nominet automaton commands.

So you don't need to spend 3/4 of an hour reading up on which template you need to use to perform a specific action.

Now I would never be so silly as to say that it's attractive to look at, but it's not meant to be!

So, in the interests of helping the wider Nominet community we've decided to make the interface software available to other Nominet members.

NB: If you are not a Nominet registrar this software will not be of any use to you. I repeat. You need to be a Nominet registrar (tag holder) to use this. You'll also need to read the include README file carefully.

Although we're generous people we would ask that you maintain the copyright notice that is included.
Full details are in the aforementioned README along with our nice big disclaimer - simple version being - if your server explodes or anything else happens please don't complain to us.

So, without further ado here is the link to the software:
Nominet Automaton Web Interface

You will need a recent version of PHP 4 or 5 to make use of it. Further details in the "famous" README.

Any issues please let us know.

We have been informed that Nominet's backend system is currently experiencing some delays.

In some cases this can lead to a 2 or 3 hour delay between a request and it being actioned.

If you are registering any co.uk domains or have requested any changes of DNS etc., then please be aware that there is a delay, which is, unfortunately, out of our control.

Nominet, the registry for .co.uk domains, will be conducting maintenance over the weekend of July 28th and 29th.

From the official notification:
The first outage will be from 09:00 on Saturday 28 July and will last for one hour. During this time, all messages to the Automaton will be queued and they will then be processed at the end of this period. The DAC and Whois services will not be available. The online services, normally available through our web site, will not be available either and a notification page will be displayed in place of these systems.

The second outage will be from 09:00 on Sunday 29 July and will again last for one hour. The same services will be affected during this second outage.

Although the outages are scheduled to last a total of two hours they may last longer.

A lot of people signup for hosting using free email accounts or maybe their "current" work email address.

Unfortunately nobody on our end can possibly know if those email addresses are valid weeks, months or years later.

If you change your email address or telephone number you can easily update it via the control panel, or contact our accounts team and get them to do it for you.

If you don't keep the details up to date you may miss important emails from us about your hosting account, your domain renewal or even the chance to get something for nothing :)

Seriously, though, it is important that people keep their contact details up to date.

If you change jobs or stop using your free email account you do run a very serious risk of missing an important email from your hosting provider, registrar or ISP.

Take the time to check that the details on your .com domains are correct, especially if you have transferred them from another provider.

Under ICANN rules the WHOIS data has to be accurate at all times.

With other registries, such as Eurid, only a very small amount of personal data is viewable to the public via standard whois. It is very hard to spam the contacts on a .eu domain, for example, so please do not let a fear of spam lead to you losing out on a domain's renewal.

Nominet has been working on upgrades to their backend systems over the last few weeks.

The upgrades were meant to have been finished by this morning, but there have been some delays.

This has led to a slight backlog on requests for new registrations, updates and renewals.

All requests are being queued.