Déjà Vu – Some Nominet Members Revolt

Nominet is to the UK, as auDA is to Australia. They are the regulators of their local domain name spaces – i.e. UK and AU.

Next week, there is an EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) which has been called by some members fed up with the way Nominet has been run. Their objective is the removal of all non-elected members of the board, including CEO Russell Haworth, and the introduction of two caretaker directors to replace them.

The people behind the campaign have put a lot into it as you can see from their very professional and informative website. It definitely has the CEO and Board of Nominet worried. Lots of concessions have already been promised.

For a journalist’s view on this, it is well worth reading Kieren McCarthy’s article in The Register.

Nominet started off by saying that is was just a vocal minority baying for change. “Trouble makers; dissidents etc”. That quickly changed when they saw the groundswell of support for the proposed motions.

A comment by one of the organisers stood out for me.

“Nominet has not been afraid to use the law to help them deal with problematic opposition.”

Déjà Vu indeed.

auDA members no longer have any easy recourse to express any frustrations with their regulator because of legal manoeuvrings that were passed a few years ago with the help of fake members. And after the new Constitution was brought in, Members became toothless Associate Members for a minimum period of two years (or if a certain membership base was achieved). After two years, the auDA Board simply extended the two year period for another term.

Membership organisation? I think not.