.nz news & views

	Tuesday, 30 July 2002

IDG InternetNZ story IDG this morning has a story called InternetNZ invites US into dispute. Seems this is based on events at the last council meeting about getting updates to IANA records for .nz. 10:42:15 AM      Like to comment? []

	Monday, 29 July 2002

So what about maori.nz? Seems that InternetNZ is trying to figure out how to release/launch the newly approved 2LD. This being the first one since 1996. Nominet recently faced a very similar issue over the approval of me.uk, their first 2LD since 1996. Their approach to help reduce 'profiteering' from registrations at launch was to introduce a sliding scale of fees during the first 6 months. Perhaps this approach is good for maori.nz? 3:13:04 PM      Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 25 July 2002

SRS Launch date A presentation on the DNC website has in it the launch date for the SRS. Buried on page 23 has the comment that it will be in October. This presentation was used for the cross country roadshow. 9:39:09 PM      Like to comment? []

	Monday, 22 July 2002

I came across www.nz-domain-names.co.nz today. At first glance it looked interesting (they state they used SOTD as an example) but was dated in March. Two things came to mind when I looked at the site: Where did they get the data from for the rankings, and Looking at the site I got the impression pdom was involved. I guess that perhaps the data from the first question was from a .nz zonefile. Last year Domainz stopped allowing anyone to download the .nz zone file and was on an approved download only basis (which is a very good idea). This site says it got data from the public domain and 'useful links' section of the (old) Domainz website. The second point is interesting. Both this domain name and the pdom domain name have very similar whois details as well as both are hosted on the same class C domain, X.X.X.74 vs X.X.X.79. Now, these could be random chance, but very similar whois data, same class C for hosting and a comment 'thanking pdom' makes me think that maybe it is just pdom using a private label website to drum up business? Nothing wrong with that but it might be nice to come out in the open and state this (or hide it better :-) 11:38:56 PM      Like to comment? []

ING dropped as .au reseller Internet Registry (ING), that has a rather dubious approach to marketing has been kicked out as a reseller of MelboureIT as report by the Financial Review. auDA also back in April suspended ING as a provisional registrar. These are the same guys that Domainz took action against in NZ in May. 10:16:11 AM      Like to comment? []

	Sunday, 21 July 2002

Changes to existing committees Overall the new crop of committees other than the new task force look the same. Some changes of people to chair them. The major change is the President chairing Administration Committee instead of the Secretary. Is this a sign it is moving to an Executive Committee? 9:20:11 PM      Like to comment? []

New InternetNZ Taskforce Keith Davidson (President) has recommended that a "Future of DOMAINZ Taskforce" be formed with him as chair. Can't add much more detail on it but I think the name speaks for itself. 9:15:21 PM      Like to comment? []

	Friday, 19 July 2002

.maori.nz passes final hurdle. As expected InternetNZ council approved the application for .maori.nz 2LD today. This is the first 2LD to be added since 1996 as well as the first to be added under the 2LD creation policy written in 1997. Press release has gone out but can't see it online yet. The interesting thing is council did not decide on how to implement it and must have been a split as they did not follow the DNC's recommendations and has delayed that aspect until next council meeting. 9:21:50 PM      Like to comment? []

NZOC meeting minutes Meeting minutes are online at the DNC website. As I commented Tuesday the minutes show very little of substance was done at this meeting. 3:00:58 PM      Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 18 July 2002

Domainz Americanism? Seems that to register a name you have to give some mandatory data.. seems logical... but it appears to demand you provide what state you live in (I thought HTTP was a stateless protocol.. yeah, I know bad joke) as well as a fax number. Guess Domainz is forcing most people (I mean how many .nz registrants are USA based?) to provide fictitious data. Hang on a second, wasn’t followtheleader.org.nz pulled from the zone file due to alleged fictitious data? 1:39:58 PM      Like to comment? []

	Wednesday, 17 July 2002

InternetNZ Council meeting This Friday is the first meeting of the new council. Looking at the agenda nothing major on it other than the .maori.nz 2LD recommendations and probable approval. Wonder what conditions will be given or if the applicant will get special treatment. If they do get any look for any future applicant to expect the same thing. A pleasant surprise is being able to review related documents from the agenda. The open policy by default policy seems to be working. 11:41:35 PM      Like to comment? []

Names in the zonefile Mark Davies has been keeping stats on the .nz zonefile since 1993 (I would guess this is the longest continuous tracking of any ccTLD). Based on Mark's analysis at July 1st .nz had 111,656 names. This is a growth of 1,126 names in a calendar month or just over 1% for the month. Compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 13%. Not too shabby esp. compared to the negative growth on the gTLD space over the last 9 months. Should .maori.nz be added as a 2LD it will add hundreds or even thousands above the current growth in the short term. Hopefully further comments about decline or collapse of the .nz name space can be based on .nz data in future and not gTLD events which have little bearing on New Zealand. 2:59:01 PM      Like to comment? []

	Tuesday, 16 July 2002

Helengrad on TV3 Just caught a story on TV3 Nightline news about Helengrad story. Showed some of the pages and overall theme, the paintings, Dear Helen, etc. Thing that made me chuckle was Helen being interviewed saying she had never heard of the website until she read the story in the paper this morning... 11:04:11 PM      Like to comment? []

.nz Oversight Committee finally convened A month after it being formed this committee had its first meeting. No agenda was issued and in fact the meeting was not even announced. It occurred after the Internet AGM on the 6th.Seems about the only thing to occur was at the end of the meeting Frank March was elected Chair. The rest of it seems to have been SRS 101 presentation and overall orientation. Lets hope that in future this group gets a bit more proactive? 11:01:17 PM      Like to comment? []

First up! Followtheleader.org.nz seems to have had some 'attention' in the last week or so. Seems last weekend Domainz killed it from the zonefile. Curious how this has only, to my knowledge, been done once before. Each time it was on policy that Domainz has NEVER enforced before. I guess if you want to kill a website nowdays all you have to do is bitch about registration details (oh, I wonder if it having anything to do with a parody of Helen C. and its election time at the moment was a factor?). You be the judge. The only story that I can see so far is on Stuff called 'Helengrad' website shut down. If you would like to see the relocated site check out The Kumara. 10:20:17 PM      Like to comment? []

Welcome! Writers 1, Reader 0. But hey, we all have to start... The idea of this blog has been kicking around for about 6 months. This is when I realised that no site was about that was related to .nz issues (many for other ccTLD's and gTLD's and also general Internet stuff like aardvark). So, here it is. General rule (which I can break whenever I wish) is to post links to stories/events. Perhaps the odd rumour or gossip will make it online.. who knows... I can read the future about as well as the nexy guy/gal. 10:07:41 PM      Like to comment? []