Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2002/12/06/nominet_explains_role_in_ebay/

Nominet explains role in ebay.co.uk detagging slip

Uh, huh...go on...mmmm...I see

By Tim Richardson

Posted in Legal, 6th December 2002 11:45 GMT

Remember the ebay.co.uk detagging fiasco earlier this week when the popular auction site was disrupted due to some administrative error?

Two days ago we ran a statement from NetNames, eBay's UK Tag holder, explaining what went wrong.

To close the circle, here's Nominet UK's take on the whole incident.

Nominet UK would like to clarify its role in the reactivation of the ebay.co.uk domain name earlier this week. We would like to make it clear that we were not responsible for causing the web site to go off-line and that we took immediate and legitimate steps to get the domain name up and running as soon as possible.

On Monday 2 December 2002, the domain name ebay.co.uk was detagged by the registration Agent Netnames (see http://www.nominet.org.uk/ref/detagged.html for an explanation of detagging). On Tuesday 3 December Nominet received an email request from Netnames stating that the domain name had been "detagged in error" and requesting Nominet to retag the domain name.

All registration agents are able to request the retagging of a domain name that has been detagged in error within 30 days of the detag occurring. It is our standard practice to deal with these requests within 24 hours and, as a result, ebay.co.uk was retagged at around 11.00 hours on 3 December 2002.

Once a domain name is retagged it is not automatically reactivated until the UK zone file has been rebuilt. Nominet currently undertakes zone file reloads daily. Under these circumstances, ebay.co.uk would not normally have been fully uploaded until the morning of 4 December 2002.

As Nominet proactively seeks to resolve problems that create disruption to a large number of end users, it was decided to carry out an additional UK zone file rebuild at around 11.30 hours on Tuesday 3 December.

Nominet took this action not only to alleviate the inconvenience that the incident created for a large number of end users, but also to reduce the additional workload placed upon us by a large numbers of public enquiries resulting from the situation. We currently handle 1,500 customer enquiries per day, of which 70% come directly from the public.

Nominet believes it is legitimate to exercise its discretion in taking specific action in order to serve the best interests of the majority of internet users. We understand that our actions may, at times, lead to concern and we always try to seek operational improvements in light of the feedback that we receive.

Nominet is reconsidering the frequency of the UK zone file rebuilds with a view to increasing their frequency in the future.

Which is nice. ®