.nz news & views

	Tuesday, 26 November 2002

Media stories on .nz Herald has a story today about domain name prices. If I was Richard Shearer I would be happy that Domainz has increased its prices. I do note that it does not say the major price increase is until February next year after the competitive model is in place. Also the registrar 'flat' fee is only a one time fee to DNC and Domainz is even offering to rebate the unused part of the annual fee they paid as .nz providers. Also if a name is not paid it automatically goes to monthly status, a whooping $2 a month cost to a registrar. This is a Good Thing(tm) as it means it is pro registrant. The other story is from IDG about outages at Xtra and TelstraClear with comments from NZRS. 9:50:38 AM      Like to comment? []

	Sunday, 24 November 2002

network troubles hit dns1 and dns2 Based on posts on NZNOG on today (Sunday) TelstraClear had major networking issues. This left dns1.dns.net.nz and dns2.dns.net.nz which are run by Domainz off the air for a good part of the day. The remaining 5 name servers were unaffected and absorbing the traffic that went to dns1 and dns2 during the network outage. 9:50:21 PM      Like to comment? []

	Saturday, 23 November 2002

DNC approves more registrars A further 5 applications for registrar accreditation have been approved by the DNC. They are: DiscountDomains.co.nz RegisterDIRECT     Iconz     Actrix      Watchdog Corporation 9:32:44 AM      Like to comment? []

	Wednesday, 20 November 2002

IDG on .bank.nz vote IDG has a story on the outcome of the .bank.nz vote. Quotes from the applicant about if they will try for a 3rd time as well as from David Farrar about the 2LD moratorium. 1:10:06 PM      Like to comment? []

	Tuesday, 19 November 2002

.kids.us to be implemented The US Congress just passed the final version of the .kids.us Act. This will mandate the creation of a new 2LD for a 'kids friendly' area of the .us name space. Wonder if this will give any ideas to NZ MP's? 9:47:33 AM      Like to comment? []

.bank.nz votes fails to pass Last night InternetNZ announced the results of the .bank.nz vote via a press release. The vote failed to pass the requirement of at least 70% support, gaining only 56% in favour. The total voting turning out was 481.  I have a copy of the press release because it was not on the InternetNZ website. 9:37:30 AM      Like to comment? []

	Monday, 18 November 2002

Executive Director advert The position of Executive Director of InternetNZ is being advertised at the moment. Closing date for applications is November 29th. 2:08:44 PM      Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 14 November 2002

IDG stories on Internet IDG has two stories published yesterday. The first is that of the Executive Director of InternetNZ saying she is quoted as saying "but it is likely to pass...". This is curious as this is either speculation which means nothing or she has had access to the in vote details. If it is the later it is major breach of the voting process as only the Voting Officer and the scrutinisers should be able to see any detail relating to the vote. The Executive Director is neither of these two roles. The mere fact of stating the vote is likely to pass in public could impact the voting pattern. The second story is that of the announced departure of the Executive Director at the end of the year. 1:55:51 PM      Like to comment? []

	Monday, 11 November 2002

First registrars approved The DNC just announced that the first three applications for registrar accrediation have been approved. They are: 2Day Web Address iSERVE 8:33:34 PM      Like to comment? []

	Friday, 8 November 2002

Zone file details for 1st November Mark Davis has updated his zone file report for November. It shows the total names at 118,062 with a growth of 2,196 for the month. The interesting thing is the decrease of maori.nz names which I assume is based on registrants not paying Domainz after the names were registered. 2:27:55 PM      Like to comment? []

	Wednesday, 6 November 2002

Domainz removes last registry reference As I expected Domainz has updated the only page I found on thier website that had a reference to them as the registry. They have added a link to NZRS and changed how they described themselves. They did however miss the leading blurb that states "...administration of the Internet names that ends in '.nz'." 5:40:15 PM      Like to comment? []

	Tuesday, 5 November 2002

Paul Brislen on Domainz Paul Brislen has authored an opinion piece about the SRS and the future of Domainz. He thinks that Domainz should be sold as a going concern. 2:11:08 PM      Like to comment? []

	Monday, 4 November 2002

Domainz removing references to registry Domainz is moving toward eliminating all references to its former management of the .nz registry. Today it listed changes to the test that is auto-generated in email. I decided to take a look around the Domainz site to see how the removing of the registry terminology was going and was pleasantly surprised to only find a single reference to .nz register on the site. 11:41:16 PM      Like to comment? []

.abnk.nz vote opens Voting has started on the .bank.nz 2LD application. Anyone can vote that has a NZ domicile. For the application to proceed to the next stage it requires at least 200 valid votes cast and at least 70% support. Failure on either of these two areas will result in the vote failing and it being rejected. 9:17:42 AM      Like to comment? []

	Sunday, 3 November 2002

Further coverage of PDT's comments InternetNews has a story on the ICANN Shanghai meeting as well as a paragraph on the comments made by Peter Dengate-Thrush. It uses the comments made by Peter as one of the anchors of its point that ICANN should be worried about the ccTLD's and RIR's. Clearly the media have picked up and run with Peter's 'personal' comments. Background: Peter is a former Chair of InternetNZ but is no longer on council. He does hold the appointed position of being Chair of the International Affairs Committee (IAC). IAC is the group that normally determines who should go to ICANN meetings. Some might disagree with this comment but I was on the IAC for a time and after reading the archives of the IAC mail list ICANN meeting attendance was about the only thing that was consistent in its sparse number of messages. 9:56:05 PM      Like to comment? []

	Friday, 1 November 2002

PDT gone too far with comments? I just came across an article from Demys about the comments that Peter Dengate-Thrush said about ICANN and the ITU. My take of the article is that PDT has over stepped the line. His comments appear to be taking as reflecting a .nz position. The following is an example of this "As Nominet (the UK domain name authority) is the second largest ccTLD, we note with reassurance that it does not appear to be associated with the controversial New Zealand statement." This also appears to be a trend as in November 2000 Peter was quoted by news.com as saying "Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the Internet Society of New Zealand, threatened "to look elsewhere for root service," a move that could create an alternative Internet." 10:25:03 PM      Like to comment? []

IDGNet Friday Fryup Paul Brislen's Friday Fryup is mainly about DomainNamesNZ this week. I guess Paul's editor told him he was under quota on using the quote symbol (") and had to catch up in a hurry :-) 9:40:08 PM      Like to comment? []