From Lesley Cowley, Chief Executive at Nominet

Hello and Happy New Year to you all. Welcome to the first Nominet News of 2007. In this issue we take a look back at a couple of the highlights from the end of last year and offer a taste of what’s to come.

We have a brief report on the latest happenings at ICANN and its meeting in Sao Paulo, which we attended for the first time as a full member of the country code name support organisation.

Emily Taylor, our Director of Legal and Policy, gives us her thoughts on the outcomes of the Internet Governance Forum and what it will mean for UK Internet users. More ›

By Emily Taylor, Nominet

Without doubt the Internet is an integral part of our everyday lives. Consequently the issue of how the Internet is governed is of growing interest to a much wider cross-section of society.

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established by the United Nations at their World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2005. Although it has no powers to make binding decisions, the IGF is a multi-stakeholder forum that debates a range of issues relating to Internet Governance. More ›

By Lesley Cowley, Nominet

Jay and I attended the latest ICANN meeting from 2-7 December in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

At the meeting, we joined the debate regarding the proposed ICANN strategic plan for 2007-2010. The plan, which was finalised and approved at the meeting, describes the challenges and opportunities that ICANN is likely to face in the coming years and outlines five strategic objectives for the ICANN community. More ›

You will probably be aware that we have been talking rather a lot about ENUM recently, and that following the recent result of the vote at our EGM, Nominet intends to bid to become the Tier one registry for ENUM in the UK.

But what is ENUM exactly? How will it work? Who will use it? If these are questions you’ve been pondering recently, please read on! More ›

At our Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on 22 November 2006 our members voted to expand our scope, enabling us to bid to run other Internet registry services, such as UK ENUM. Our members also voted in favour of enabling electronic voting and communication, to enable simplified voting and increased participation. More ›

We are updating Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) to keep the service quick, simple, fair and approachable for all who use it, and to make sure that it keeps abreast of changes in the external environment. More ›

Thank you to those of you who submitted feedback to us regarding the proposal by Global Name Registry to introduce two-character strings within .name at the second level, and by implication the possible introduction of .uk.name. More ›

In September 2005, following the results of our customer satisfaction survey, in which over 80 per cent of registrars who responded said that they felt increased regulation or a code of conduct for the Internet industry was required, the Policy Advisory Body (PAB) agreed that Nominet should look at the issue of industry standards. We therefore undertook the consultation on Raising Industry Standards from 31st January to 31st May 2006. We have reviewed the consultation responses along with feedback from members, MPs and other interested parties. After discussion with the PAB it was agreed that the existing Tag Holder Agreement will be replaced with:

• a Registrar Agreement; and
• Good Practice Terms

More ›

Nominet hosts a series of events for our members and registrars throughout the year.

Taking place at various locations around the country, our popular Registrar Information Days are a great opportunity to find out more about our business processes and learn about our current systems and future developments. Representatives from our Member and Registrar services team will be available throughout this full day of presentations, demonstrations of new systems and discussions, giving you the chance to ask questions about any aspect of our services. This event will help you find ways of interacting more efficiently with our systems, whether you are a new registrar or more experienced. More ›