insight 

I noticed the other day that there is a “Linked ICANN” group in LinkedIn so I joined it assuming it was run by ICANN.  However, having seen the home page (http://www.linkedicann.com/) it clearly isn’t.  In fact it appears to be a domainer run group since that site has nothing but adverts on it.  I’m not a member of the group any more.

This got me thinking that it would be good for us to have a Nominet group on LinkedIn for anyone to join, which we could use as another way of keeping in touch with our community.  It would also mitigate the chances of someone doing to us what they’ve done to ICANN.  So I’ve created a group called “Nominet Community” and anyone can join.  This is the URL:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/101204/7BB57564185C

While I was at it I created one for Nominet staff, past and present, to join.  Obviously this one is not open to everyone:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/101205/179AFC14DE04

The Monday 17 December deadline for sending feedback about our proposals for a Nominet Foundation is fast approaching. If you have any views on the concept of a foundation, or suggestions of possible beneficiaries we’d be very interested to hear from you. Either complete our short online survey or email comments to foundation@nominet.org.uk.

We have received some encouraging comments so far, but the level of feedback has been disappointing with only 20 responses received.

Some background:
Our proposal recommends that we create a Nominet Foundation for the purpose of public benefit to UK Internet stakeholders through education, research and the funding of suitable projects. We would set it up as a charity and company limited by guarantee, with a first year donation of £5m.

This proposal has been made to resolve the issue of the level of our reserves, which have been increasing significantly beyond the level we have identified as necessary for the ongoing running of the business.

We have thought long and hard about possible ways of resolving this issue and some of the more obvious options are not open to us. For instance we are unable to change the price of domain names unless 75% of our membership vote in favour of a change. And, although some members favour a price reduction, others are equally convinced that the price should be increased, as they feel price reductions devalue the product. Also, our constitution prevents us from distributing funds to our members.

As these options are not available to us, the plan for a Foundation to benefit the Internet industry in the UK has emerged as the most popular solution and we’re taking feedback on this proposal now, so do let us know your thoughts.

This is just a quick reminder that Nominet’s second consultation on corporate governance closes next Wednesday, 31 October. We currently have had only 16 responses. If you have any comments you would like to make about the proposals please do let us know by completing the questionnaire or emailing us governanceconsultation@nominet.org.uk.

Some of the readers of this blog may be aware that we have been running a consultation on whether we should switch our member’s mailing list to a web-based forum. There has been quite some debate on the issue and with two weeks to run the poll is currently split 50:50 on whether we should make the switch or leave things as they are.

A third way has been suggested / requested by several. This would be an integrated web-based forum and email list solution. We’ve been looking into this possibility for some time and have as yet to find a solution that matches our requirements. If anyone out there has experience of reliable, well-tested solutions to this issue we’d be interested to hear about them.

If you’re one of our members and haven’t responded and feel strongly about the issue, then do please let us know by responding to the online survey here:
http://www.nominet.org.uk/policy/consultations/forum