I’ve mentioned the topic of personal IE domains on here more than once in the past and in my conversations with the IE Domain Registry.
Just to recap; Under the current rules you cannot register johndoe.ie if your name is John Doe. You would have to add a number to the name, thus rendering it totally useless eg. johndoe7.ie or something of that style.
There are other ways to circumvent the rules which have allowed people to register a wide variety of domains for themselves, but the basic issue has always lain with the registration of domains such as:
- johnmurphy.ie
- jmurphy.ie
Since the IEDR’s CEO, David Curtin, has “let the cat out of the bag” in his recent interview with the Irish Times’ John Collins I’ve no reason not to 🙂
At the end of last month the IE Domain Registry contacted all of its accredited resellers (registrars) looking for feedback on proposed changes to the way “personal” IE domains are handled.
The registry proposed a relaxation of the policy to allow:
personal domain names which correspond to the individual’s name
Of course you will have to prove your claim to the domain name by producing some form of official documentation, such as driver’s license, passport etc.,
The format of allowed names would include:
- Johnsmith.ie
- Johnpaulsmith.ie
- John-smith.ie
- John-paul-smith.ie
- jsmith.ie
- Jpsmith.ie
- J-smith.ie
- J-p-smith.ie
which covers most of the imaginable formats that people might ask for.
While the new rules will be applicable to Irish citizens applying for IE domains it still isn’t 100% clear how the registry intends to handle non-Irish nationals and this category of domain registration, so the final decision is yet to be made.
It is possible that the rules may be broadened after an initial period eg. 6 or 12 months.
As things stand it looks likely that the proposed change will come into effect in July or August of this year.
Unfortunately there will be no sunrise period, so it will be very much a case of “first come, first served”.
It should be interesting to see if the system holds up to the extra personal name traffic. The main thing that would worry me is the dilution of value in .ie as a result of such a move. Some accountants, lawyers and consultants tend to use their names as domains.
The decision to keep .ie as a business only domain was made years ago by people who really didn’t understand the domain business. In fact, apart from David Curtin, there is a complete lack of a clue on the board of IEDR – they are just a bunch of CV padders rather than domain industry professionals.
This move, to go for proper domains rather than .name.ie subdomains may be better and could boost the registration figures. However the price will be a key issue. IEDR has to tread a fine line between its existing market and the potential personal name registrant market.
Just reading the IEDR annual report at the moment and it irritates me to see that some people in IEDR still think that webhosting.info is a reliable source for domain statistics. If they knew the real stats, they could easily have mentioned that .eu is not a serious player in the Irish market and has had no negative impact on the growth of .ie ccTLD. Though it will be interesting to see if the same level of speculation gets into the .ie personal name market. Entitlement may be the most reliable method to maintain the integrity of .ie ccTLD.
I do hope that the personal.name.ie thingie is not restricted to Irish citizens whenever it comes on stream (which seems to be a possibility if I read your item correctly).
In fact, restricting “ie” domains to Irish citizens might be illegal if allocating an ‘ie’ domain is the provision of a service.
There was a case in the Equality Tribunal a few years ago of some … ummm … [Peruvian | Chilean] people who had been long-term residents here and who were denied a training grant for a course in a college of further education because they were not Irish (or, in that case, EU citizens). The grant provider was essentially requiring them to give up a central feature of their identity – their nationality – to get equal treatment. That, however, is something our education system is wonderful at. The latest term in the DES and associated bodies for immigrant students is “new Irish”. Damned few of the immigrants I know see themselves as Irish, new or otherwise, and some are quite offended at other people’s insistance that the change their identity because /we/ can’t cope.
Tipster
While I can understand where you are coming from I’d have to remind you that the only serious cybersquatter in the IE namespace is a pair of Irish residents that are not citizens.
A lot of Irish people would like to register personal .ie domains, so it would only make sense that they be allowed first call.
In the domaining world you will find that people will go to great lengths to falsify residency etc., just to get the domains they want….
Michele
John
The accountants and solicitors have plenty of opportunity to register their domains if they want to. The problem facing most registrars is dealing with the volume of requests from individuals for IE domains, which is why I personally am in favour of the move. There will have to be validation on the requests, so there is no conflict with the “managed” concept
Michele
Yep Michele,
As has been shown before, IEDR’s vetting of applications seems to be somewhat incompetent (eubrowser.com irishindependent.ie, bebo.ie, google typosquats etc). How could they manage such a large scale checking? And there are personal data privacy issues – these would be individuals using personal identification data.
There is no guarantee that IEDR would be able to prevent a personal domain being used for business purposes – even if it writes it into the contract. However with the recent legislation, ComReg is now the final authority on what happens with .ie ccTLD policy.
The restriction on personal doms will, probably, be citizen-only. Anything wider would, initially, cause too many problems.
John
the category of name that is being discussed is quite narrow – personal names NOT IE domains for private citizens.
So while it would be possible to register johnmurphy.ie under the new terms there would be very little wrong with John Murphy trading as himself, as he would be a sole trader
Michele
Michele
Do you think it will be possible to register the doamin “murphy.ie” with the pending changes?
Kieran
It wouldn’t be allowed – no
Michele
IE Domain Registry Ltd. has no business making these policy changes. It would appear that changing these regulations is a power reserved to ComReg alone under law.
Antoin
So progress should be stalled?
In any case, if you read the legislation it’s clear that they have lots of options, but they haven’t acted on any of them as yet.
The idea of handing domain policies over to government is plain wrong.
Michele
“The idea of handing domain policies over to government is plain wrong.”
I’m agog.
Simon
I don’t have an issue with government oversight, but most politicians and civil servants don’t seem to understand the internet, so how could they be in a position to dictate policy?
Don’t forget that some of the more contentious parts of the current policies governing the IE namespace are strongly influenced by government eg. porn.ie
Look what happened with .xxx? Or rather didn’t happen …
Michele
I am just telling you what the law of the land is. This was all decided after lengthy consultations.
I have read the legislation. It clearly moves the role of deciding the rules for registration from the registry to the regulator.
What position did the government take as regards porn.ie?
Antoin
It seems that the CRO and other departments don’t like the idea of registering a business name with porn in the name.
As if ignoring porn would make it all go away ….
Michele
I think that Antoin is right (some of the lawyers reading the thread can confirm),
IEDR has been stripped of the policy making process under the legislation. The reasons for this are both historical and ongoing. The historical reasons have to do with the laughing stock IEDR became with a suspended CEO (Mike Fagan) and a board that was (and still is) in serious danger of contracting woodworm. The international standing of .ie ccTLD suffered and it statistically affected .ie ccTLD as .com became the predominant domain extension in Ireland. The new legislation allows for IEDR to be completely stripped of the contract to run .ie ccTLD should it become necessary in the future.
The ongoing reasons are more complex. Not one member of the board of IEDR has any recognised domain/webhosting industry experience. It would not be permitted in a real ccTLD registry but IEDR has been a dumping ground rather than a meritocracy. Indeed the management of David Curtin has kept .ie ccTLD viable despite the board of IEDR.
ComReg has to consult on policy issues. This is a lot better than the old position where a bunch of planks on the board of the IEDR made the decisions (most of them bad) that screwed the development of .ie ccTLD for years.
The idea of handing the domain policies over to a bunch of planks with no specialist domain/hosting industry experience is worse as the last seven years of IEDR’s history has demonstrated. At least there is an element of consultation in the legislation whereas before there was none. Though it does explain why IEDR has become a lot more responsive (consulting the industry) in the last year or so.
Looking at the personal domains issue in a cynical light provides a different angle. The personal domains issue is something that regularly gets floated to unsuspecting technology journalists. (Even Fagan used to float it to technology journalists.) I don’t think that John Collins knew enough about the domains/hosting industry to see that the real story in the IEDR financial report was the change of the legal framework governing .ie ccTLD and the reduction of IEDR’s position to that of a service company. Even so, the domain/hosting industry is a lot happier with IEDR’s performance now than it was seven years ago.