Gandi IWI Blog - uk

The .ME.UK is available

Ryan — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:12:00 +0200

Hello,

Today we have added the possibility of registering domain names in .me.uk, which is the UK extension that is designed for individuals. The extension nonetheless remains open to all. It may be registered for a minimum of 2 years at a rate of €6 under A rates.

You may see the .ME.UK information page here: https://www.gandi.net/domain/me.uk/info

The complete .ME.UK price list can be found at: https://www.gandi.net/domaine/prix/detail/nl/

How the domain name industry works - polluting the name space

Joe — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:19:00 +0100

Would you trust a 'for profit' company to represent your best interests? Perhaps. But when your interests diverge, will they represent you or themselves?

Following the overwhelming success of our first article on the domain name industry (1 comment ;-), we naturally thought you were begging for more! I know, I know registrars and registries can be a bit dull, but it is important. Believe me when something goes wrong with your domain name, understanding this can be quite important. So if we look at how and where issues can be dealt with, and who has influence in the industry it sheds a bit more light on the subject.

So now we know who's who in the tree (ICANN, Registries, Registrars, Resellers and You) we can see how the influence the landscape and who has control of what. In a nutshell:

So you as a customer will rely on your Registrar (or Reseller) to represent your needs and solve your problems for you, though they may have to do this at the Registry or ICANN level.

The crazy thing about this is that the Registrars (or Resellers) which are purely commercial entities have voting rights at the registries and ICANN to influence overall policy in the domain space. In some registries (e.g. Nominet for UK), they have voting rights based on the number of domains they manage. So the bigger the commercial entity, the more influence on policy. Hmm. Would you trust a for profit company to represent your best interests? Perhaps. But when your interests diverge, will they represent you or themselves?

Imagine this problem - the domain name space is being filled with squatters, domain speculators, parked/advertised domain names, etc. Now as 'you' the consumer of domain names or visitor to sites online, this is probably not a good thing. You can't get the addresses you want because they are taken, and when you do browse the net you often come across pointless, cluttered sites that offer nothing but invitations to buy them and ad links to other services.

So what would 'you' like. Probably to get rid of all this junk domain space to free it up for use by people who want to publish actual sites or services online, not just profit from the namespace.

But what about the Registries, Resellers, Regsitrars and even ICANN? Well unfortunately they get paid for every domain name sold. If you were to cut all these domains out each of these bodies would see a substantial drop in revenue. For ICANN or the Registries, this might result is less resources to support or manage the name space. For Registrars and Resellers (and some private sector Registries), this would lead to lower sales and profits and 'shareholder value'.

So if you were running a company would you push for something that was better for your customers, but resulted in a 25-50% fall in sales? Hmm. Perhaps not.

The fact that some Registrars like us (but not us, we don't do this!) are actually taking available domains out of circulation, so customers can't get them, and then advertising on them for profit is extraordinary. We're crapping in our own garden!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_front_running http://domainnamewire.com/tag/domain-warehousing/

At Gandi we do believe that our industry needs to clean itself up and not accept this 'pollution' of our own domain name space. Gandi has always stood against these activities and will not engage in them. But as an industry we have to grow up and accept lower sales volume for the sake of maintaining a useable and available name space that is in the interest of all internet users, and not just the commercial companies that have privileged access to domain buying and domain information.

If we just go all out for profit, much like the current man made global pollution problem, we'll just trash our own domain name space.

So when you buy a domain name, you are in effect taking a vote for the company that you want to represent your interests in the definition of global domain policy. Think about it.

To comment on this article go to the Gandibar.

Gandi supports Demotix.com

Joe — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:24:00 +0000

As many of you may know Gandi likes to put its money where its mouth is (not literally, as most coins are actually quite unhygienic, but that's another story). But it does mean that we provide support to other companies that are doing exciting work to provide credible alternatives for customers often in industries with well established monopolies.

So we are very proud to be able to extend this support to Demotix.com who describe themselves as a citizen-journalism website and photo agency. Demotix takes user-generated content and photos from freelance journalists and amateurs and markets them to the mainstream media.

And why are they doing this? Mainly for us. The shocking reduction in generation of 'news' that is currently underway puts us, the readers, in a situation where we know less and less about what is really going on. Today there are only 4 US newspapers with a foreign desk. Even AP and Reuters fail to cover 40% of the world with a single staff member. Publishers are cutting journalism costs to fight the fall in ad revenue, and rely more on newswires for content. This means the available sources of news are being reduced, and ultimately it is us who will suffer.

Demotix believes it can change this. They believe that together we can build news communities and source stories and news from every corner of the globe. We can change the way news is gathered, and we can change what's on the front pages of every newspaper and broadcast worldwide.

The quality of the photos and honesty behind the stories is extraordinary. Have a look for yourself at www.demotix.com and learn a bit more about their vision and philosophy at www.demotix.com/page/about-us.

And if you want to know more about the Gandi Supports projects, then take a look at our site www.gandi.net/supports/ and see what else we're up to. Maybe we can help you too! (though do look at our 'search criteria' we're not a VC fund

If you want to comment on this story, visit our blog at gandibar.net.

UK government theatens domain name industry, 'Get your house in order or we'll step in and take over'!

Wendy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:19:00 +0000

This was my first Nominet conference and to be honest I thought it would be quite a dry, corporate affair however I was in for a surprise!

Much like the Internet as a whole, governance of TLD's(top level domains) and ccTLD's(country specific) has grown organically and varies from country to country. To-date the UK and the US governments have taken a non-interventionist approach to governance. The US have taken a totally freemarket approach and gave the right to manage .com to Verisign who run the registry as a profitable and commercial business. Nominet run the .UK registry theoretically as a not for profit business however the fact they made £25 million profit this year has raised questions among it's membership and the government.

We walked into the conference unaware that Nominet was under scrutiny by the government induced by board member in fighting , accusations of mismanagement and conflicts of interest. More controversially BERR (government Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform) has serious concerns that Nominet are not looking after the interests of the wider group of stakeholders in the domain industry specifically businesses and the general public in addition to it's existing responsibility to the registrar members.

David Hendon, director of business relations at BERR said 'Nominet and the domain industry need to take more heed of the government agenda on phishing, spam and "bad content". He read out a statement at the conference which to paraphrase sent the message, 'Nominet and it's membership need to get their house in order and self regulate to the government's satisfaction or it would strongly intervene'.

I asked David 'You've effectively made a threat telling us to get our house in order, we need to fill a gap, what are your expectations?'. His reply was essentially, 'I don't know but I'll know if it's right when I see it!' Not to misrepresent Mr Hendon, it was a considered and measured response 'I don't believe the government should tell you what to do as we are not experts in these matters ,you all are, you should agree a course of action amongst yourselves with Nominet as the spokesperson and propose a solution around governance and regulation back to us' he also cautioned us that we only had a year to resolve this matter and the response needed to be suitable as deemed by his dept or else ....?

There was a range of responses to the BERR statement from the members ranging from the purist 'leave us alone, the internet should never be regulated in at all', to 'how dare they, it's the government behaving like big brother' and from some of the larger registrars 'let's work it out with Nominet and propose a solution'.

Our view at Gandi is that putting aside our own commercial self interests, registrars have a moral responsibility to business and the general public to keep as much 'Internet real estate' as possible free for genuine use and we take a strong stand against, squatting, spamming, over dominance of advertising and abuse of secondary markets through extortion and touting. As many of you know we also believe your domain name, like your home, is your property (given you're not a squatter) and you should not be restricted in managing it in any way. We certainly won't suddenly stick an advertising hoarding on your home just because you're not living in it at the moment! We believe the industry is grown up enough to regulate itself given we take the time to debate strongly, talk to each other and Nominet and propose an effective solution to the UK government.

If the UK take a lead worldwide in self regulation of the domain name industry will other countries follow? The problems experienced by consumers and businesses with .uk are reflected ten-fold for .com and other free market TLD's.

What do you think? Click here to comment ...

There were many other topics debated at the conference, the role of secondary markets, trust online, child protection, phishing, parked sites etc but more in future blogs ...

ICANN - domain name extension liberalisation - who benefits?

Joe — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:06:00 +0000

Some of you may have seen earlier in the year that ICANN (the body in charge of regulating the domain name space) announced that it was going to liberalise the market for domain name extensions, e.g. the bit that follows the last '.' in a name, .com, .net., .co.uk, .eu, etc.

What this means is that in theory anyone can apply to become a registry in their own right, and get .theirname so that you can buy domain names from them and get yourname.theirname. ICANN have now announced that the 'evaluation' process for new extensions will be costly, $185,000. Well costly for you and me, but perhaps not for funds or speculators.

But what is point in all this? Does it matter? Should we care?

The justification for doing it is that the internet is growing, more people are coming online, it allows more choice, blah, blah, blah. Which has some truth to it. But in some ways there is already an infinite number of domain names available across each of the roughly 280 existing TLDs (from .ac -> .zw - there should be a catchy alphabet song for them!).

But what does it mean for you, the customer? Well, it does mean you can get more choice. You will be able to buy yourdomain.something. Whether this helps is a different matter. Many of these new extensions will be quite specific, which may help, e.g. myplace.restaurant, or myhouse.london, but it may just create more and more confusion that your chosen name can have so many different extensions, which one is really you?

One result of this will probably be that more and more people will want to authenticate that their domain name, whatever unusual form it takes, can be explicitly linked to them. The most common way to do this at the moment it through SSL certificates, where a third party will guarantee that the domain is owned by a particular individual/company, and that you are browsing on that site in a secure way. So this is something to think about and watch out for...

There is one group of people that will undoubtedly benefit from this liberalisation and that is the spammers, advertisers and squatters.

In the old days if you wanted to protect your brand you could buy all 280 extensions. No longer. With a potentially limitless number of extensions, there is no way that you can get yourbrand.allofthem, so even the most well protected global brands may find a few more lawsuits on the horizon. The beneficiaries of this will be the squatters and advertisers who will use establishedbrand.newtld as an advertising site, or domain auction target (buy this one back, for $xxx).

And then there will be the increased volume of ad sites, just showing endless streams of ad feeds on domain names with no real purpose except to make money for their owner. I always think about this in terms of domain names as property: if the best properties in your town (domains on your tld) were closed down and became advertising bill boards, would you stand for this as a resident? This is exactly what is happening online. Most of the best names/words are turning into bill boards, and it will only continue unless there is a regulatory change to stop or limit it.

So there you have it, the change is coming, the benefits are unclear. But one thing that is clear is that unless ICANN take more of a role in setting and enforcing codes of content for domain ownership/usage, we may find as customers we are browsing in a larger and more polluted domain space.

What do you think?

If you want to comment on this article, please visit us in the gandibar.

Peek at the Gandi UK Office

Wendy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:12:00 +0000

It's been 2 weeks now since we launched www.gandi.co.uk and we thought you might like to know a little more about the UK office and what we get up to day to day.

The UK office is based in central London, surrounded by lots of fashion wholesale businesses which means you either bump into large card board boxes or fashion models depending on the luck of the draw.

The office is a large loft and is light and airy, you do need to be careful though climbing our stairs as one step's higher than the others, an initiative test designed to weed out the less dextrous.

We share the office with our sister company www.moonfruit.com They produce website building tools which enables anyone to build their own professional looking website quickly and easily. Like Gandi they believe in providing tools for people to own and manage their online presence: business, profile or project.

It is stereotypically English but we do drink a lot of tea from 'fake tan' builders to 'you've got to be kidding' redbush, at least we managed to get beyond the 'tea making mafia' that dominates most UK businesses, we each make our own and for the more adventurous we have a gem of a fresh coffee maker.

We spend a lot of time talking to the Gandi team in France. They're based in Paris and every two weeks we get on the Eurostar, arrive in Nation and grab a pain au raison from a boulangerie in Boulevard Voltaire (exceptional) which sets us up nicely to make good stuff happen on our joint projects.

The hot topic in the office at the moment is of course the 'credit crunch' and looming recession. Interestingly as both companies started in 1999, the majority of us survived, in one form or another, the tech market crash in 2001. Did we actually learn anything? Hindsight of course is a marvellous thing but in difficult times it's hard to see the woods from the trees. A humble summary of our thoughts: The belt tightening and re-establishing of discipline that happens in a down turn is good if painful. It is a chance to get real, re-think and re-build a business which is sustainable. A business is a long term prospect, it's about stewardship and growth, it's about real jobs, having a purpose you believe in and exceeding customers needs and expectations. Most importantly, it's about balancing this with the rest of your life, so you have the resources to play a long term game. This won't happen if we burn out at work, neglect those at home or never enjoy our other passions in life.

You'll be coming across some of the team in the Gandi blog from time to time, here's a little bit about them in case you want to say 'hello':

Joe
Manages group operations and finances, peacemaker and red Thai curry enthusiast. Sang in a band called ‚ 'Sexual Chocolate'.

Wendy
Manages UK business and external communications, mostly interrupts people in the office to ask random questions. Dreams about being on 'Strictly Come Dancing'.

Eirik
Oversee software development schedules, prioritisation and methodology as well as IT operations, was a mean ice hockey player.

Josh
Looks after computers, he get's more text messages from the servers than from his friends. Once abseiled from the top of Canary Warf tower to the look of utter shock from the people inside.

Say 'hello' ...

Gandi UK Team

Gandi has arrived in the UK!

Wendy — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:18:00 +0100

The Gandi UK team has opened the doors to business! Jolly good show. The first thing you'll notice is the new 'US flag' on the gandi website (I thought Gandi UK was launching?!?). Well that's because the Union Jack (or is it the Union Flag?) now points to the UK English version of the Gandi site and the proud Stars and Stripes points to the international English version. Why not take a look.

But what does it all mean to me? Well here's a summary for you.

Your website

Well the UK English version is now tailored to you. That means UK prices (in pounds), UK specific text (where we feel there is a need for a difference) and UK specific content, e.g. news or offers. For example, when blog articles are published by the UK team they will appear at the top of the news section within the UK English version. Prices and offers on the homepage will always be in GBP and specific to the UK audience.

Your domain

To kick things off we've lowered the price of the .co.uk and .org.uk domain names to £3 (ex VAT) per year. Remember with every Gandi domain you get full DNS control, a free blog, 5 email mailboxes with infinite aliases (1 GB storage), full customer support, and privacy protection. While you will find cheaper .uk domains on the market, you won't find one that includes all this. It's also part of our philosophy to sell domains at a reasonable price (not as loss leaders), so that you know we're not just trying to lure you in to sell you something else. We also believe, unlike some providers that you should have unrestricted access to managing your domain as it is more than just a name but your online presence. But more about our philosophy another time.

Your team

You now have a dedicated UK team based in London working to support our UK Gandi customers and promote our ethical domain and cutting edge hosting services to new faces far and wide. We are keen to get your feedback on what you like about Gandi and what you think we could do better. And how you came to us in the first place? While support will continue to be offered from our multilingual team in Paris, the UK team will ensure that you get the level of service you require and that we are on top of UK specific issues.

Your projects

We've launched our popular Gandi supports policy in the UK with the new citizen journalism site www.demotix.com (more about them another time). Gandi supports has the goal of helping businesses that share our vision for the internet to get started online. We want to put our money where our mouth is and help others achieve the same goals. Please contact us (direction at gandi.net) if you think you’d be a good UK candidate for Gandi supports project, but make sure you read our pages first to see the kinds of business we support.

And don't worry if you're not from the UK, the reality is that with additional English language team members we'll be able to extend our love far and wide to our English speaking cousins.

We look forward to working with you all!

UK Team

P.S. To leave comments, please visit us at the bar!