Recently we have been concerned about the activities of an organization known as Webhound.
In 1999 the cost of registering a domain name dropped and an organization known as webhound registered the names of some 15000 localities under the co.uk top domain. Briston was just one of these registrations. This had the effect of denying anyone else the possibility of promoting their own village as a good will gesture. Registering such a large number of domains, in our opinion, could have only one purpose, for gain. Early in 2000 the company 'went public' but tried to explain itself as doing it 'for the good of the community' enabling them to have a web presence at no cost and creating a national link to web sites around the country. This was not for any great financial gain. I made contact with webhound requesting further information and immediately they linked our site. In doing so, anyone searching for 'briston' was directed to their portal which is full of advertising, the amount of space devoted to the link to our site very small in comparison. In my opinion this inferred that our site endorsed webhound, their advertising and that we were dependant on them. The appearance on television of the owner of webhound gave the impression that they were the only people who had the expertise to actually produce sites for the various localities. Further to this, they are about to launch a service, which for an annual payment, would enable people to have an address of say fred@briston.co.uk We would be able to provide this free, if only webhound had not 'hijacked' our village name. They also promote their own service for the production of things like Parish Magazines. This I feel is clearly a commercial operation aimed at villages such as ours, using our village name for gain.
We are not the only ones concerned about Webhounds actions and it should be noted that there has been one or two high profile cases in America of people being prosecuted for sitting on domain names like www.mcdonalds.com with a hope of selling them to the 'real' company at enormous profit. We would like to see the same principle here.
Webhound are not contactable by telephone, only by request will they give their number. The reason they say is that they do not have the facilities. You will note that you are able to contact Digital Design with no problems. We have contacted webhound by email and have informed them that we intend to put a disclaimer on our site and post information as to recent events. We have also requested their telephone number. They have responded by saying that they will remove the Briston link, this was at 13.29 GMT on Saturday 29th January 2000. It took them 36 hours to link us, we waited over a week to be removed. We have not yet been informed of their telephone number. After they said that the link would be removed we asked for our village back, of course meaning that we would like to have the domain name briston.co.uk for the use of the community rather than that of some commercial remote organization. They have stated quite correctly that we could still register Briston under the .org domain structure, but if we are honest, anyone guessing a URL would go for the .co.uk and certainly not .org.uk - a rather weak argument we feel.
Of course we recognize that any business has a right to work with the framework of legislation and rules in order to profit. In this case we feel that there is a moral side and also some degree of 'tongue in cheek' deception in their stated intentions and reasons. We urge you to email us on your thoughts and hopefully obtain your support in returning the domain names back to those who feel similarly to us. We would particularly like to hear from any other locality that feels the same as us. At present we are in consultation with Nominet, having registered a complaint. Webhound has started defending their position and have until 30th October to reply to Nominet.
The next development was that various letters flowed. Webhound declined to negotiate and thus Nominet decided to take the matter to 'decision'. We now await Nominet's judgment. We expect this to be about late January 2001
Judgment has been made and not surprisingly I did not get the name back. When I look at the reasons however I am not happy. It is clear that Webhound are a bigger customer to Nominet than myself. I have made comments to Nominet and I could challenge the decision, however there may still be a chance. In September the rules are going to change and perhaps then would be the time to act once more.
Recently I placed a comment on webhound's notice board asking for our domain back, I received a reply as follows.
Dear Kevin
If you want the domain name that much why don't the villagers pay
£250 to an autism charity of our choice?
We have an autistic son, aged 4. That is why there has not been
much progress with the websites.
See www.ANY-Autism.co.uk - I am sure you will rejoyce with glee.
Best wishes
Angie Barrow
www.ANY-Village.co.uk
I replied
Dear Ms Barrow
Obviously I am sorry to hear about your son, having 5 children myself I
clearly can have some understanding. However, simple calculations show that
the task of servicing the number of domains which you have registered
exceeds your capabilities, if you are to achieve your stated objectives.
Although I can understand that perhaps your efforts have been curtailed
somewhat because of circumstances even the information which you have been
able to add to the site, taking http://www.briston.co.uk in particular is
not accurate.
Also, do you not find it distasteful to try and raise money to help a
charity by artificially raising the price of a saleable item. Charitable
donations often are made which involve large sums for a small if not no,
actual return, the difference being that these donations or payments are
made with a free good will. This is not the case which you put forward. To
suggest that the villagers pay is not in keeping with how I run the
community sites which I operate. These are at no cost to the community. I
will supply any charitable organisation with a free email address of
yourname@briston-nortfolk.co.uk (or meltonconstable). Any commercial
business gets free advertising. Yes, there is a small charge should any
individual wishes to have an email address but this is because I now incur a
charge myself as I have given away all my free inclusive email forwarding
addresses supplied by my registrar, which is Shlund (oneandone)
I remember your television interview when the bulk purchase of such a large
number of domains was made. Here you tried to cover your operations under
the guise of helping out various communities. I could have been more
understanding if you had just said that it was a commercial operation to
make profit. I have no problem with any business making a legal profit. Now
it would seem you are trying to legitimise charging by bringing into the
field a charity.
If you wish to raise money for autism, why not donate your domains to a
charity so that they can then sell them on? Of course you could release your
domains and let the conscience of those that obtain them make a suitable
donation. This is the usual way charities obtain funds from the public,
appealing to peoples conscience.
I have not entered into the debate about your purchases for some time as I
thought that perhaps you should have been given a suitable length of time to
show that you were genuine in your objectives. Not withstanding your
problems can you honestly say that you have, or will achieve your aims and
has not your idea now been overtaken by events anyway?
I would suggest that you will never be able to inform and entertain by way
of your sites in the manner that those who actually live in the community.
I would site that on 30th March 2003 a celebration was held in Melton
Constable of 100 years of worship at a local church. the event was
published on the internet by 20.00 the same day, and appeared in the parish
magazine the next day. Admittedly the magazine went to print the next day so
was able to be included. I refer you to
http://www.meltonconstable-norfolk.co.uk and follow the link news.
You are fully aware that Nominet have put into place such a system for
disputes that you can hide under the fee to ensure that you can hold your
domains even though they clearly confuse those who access your sites.
I would suggest that you reconsider your activities and I would be happy to
have transferred the tld of briston.co uk and meltonconstable.co.uk for
which of course I would pay reasonable costs, noting that is that your
organization is a Nominet member.
What I do not do today
I probably will not do tomorrow
K. J. Craske
If you are able to help or would just like to give me support, please get in contact.
Our email address is webmaster@digital-design.demon.co.uk
The Briston section of the Digital Design site is maintained by myself. I live in Briston and no charge is made for its creation or maintenance. It is my contribution to the community. We provide free email facilities to those organizations who feel they may benefit and at present are expanding the site to include all commercial businesses in Briston with a mention on the site. No charge is made. This is to promote Briston, not make financial gain. We would like the briston.co.uk domain so that search engines would find us. We do not wish to have any form of external advertising.
K. J. Craske