.nz news & views

	Friday, 30 April 2004

.nz registrar will be updated soon The Registrar price list has not been updated since late last year. I will start working on this again and you should see an update soon. 3:29:22 PM      Like to comment? []

Roger De Salis removed from InternetNZ council Digging around in the council papers I finally found the reference that Roger De Salis was 'removed' from council. I wonder why it took 4 months for InternetNZ to notice that a councillor was in fact no longer a member. Guess they were to busy consulting to the LIC.. oh hang on... strike that. 3:10:06 PM      Like to comment? []

InternetNZ members and .nz local internet community In the recent InternetNZ Council meeting a paper was presented titled REVIEW OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE .NZ OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE. I do not recall any public consultation occurring about this. Perhaps it was just to members, if so InternetNZ has to understand that the membership of InternetNZ does not equal to the 'Local Internet Community'.  I am starting to see InternetNZ become very lazy and only bother to inform members about things and then decide on policy or issues based on this. Another one a report that appears only to be aimed at members titled Report on the Introduction of DNSSEC to the .nz SRS and DNS for InternetNZ Members' Consultation, March 2004 You can hardly say that talking to about 200 people that are not representative of the .nz LIC as consulting and then say no changes are needed. Come on, InternetNZ has million of dollars in the bank (unless it has been spent already), use to to do real meaningful consulting or don't bother at all. 3:02:20 PM      Like to comment? []

	Wednesday, 28 April 2004

Rafferty and courts ban NZ Herald published a story this afternoon about Chesley Rafferty being banned from providing misleading web domain namesby the courts in Australia. This is the recent court action by ACCC and auDA. 3:42:52 PM      Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 22 April 2004

InternetNZ and moi I just want to ensure people are aware of the relationship between moi (and ergo this site) and InternetNZ. It is easy no relationship exists. I let my membership lapse late last year after being a member since 1999. In the past I have been very involved, served on lots of working groups and committees as well as a former councilor and treasurer. I currently serve on one InternetNZ working group (the 2LD review one), which is part of the DNC/NZOC 'arm' of the Society. Many 'old timers' have left InternetNZ in the last year or so. I also heard that a very prominent person has let his membership lapse as well which has caused a bit of an issue for council. 3:05:57 PM      Like to comment? []

	Tuesday, 20 April 2004

Chesley Rafferty vows to carry on slamming Herald has a story today with comments from Chesley Rafferty, director of Domain Names NZ. The angle is that after tweaking his letters based on the court ruling he will be right back at it again. Good comment from ComCom about this "... Rafferty's failure to challenge the commission's actions, even though he was being denied more than $500,000 in revenue, could be an indication of how strong he thought his case might be. " 11:55:24 AM      Like to comment? []

maori.nz history posting on AMIO follow up This is my follow up to the ‘history of .maori.nz’ posting on AMIO. I know it is late but then again you didn’t exactly pay for this did ya? This is a bit raw, I wrote most it last night. I might do some editing (HTML is crap) in the next few days. This is either to fill in some missing facts or provide a different view on some of the events listed. This is not meant to be an attack or represent anyone views but my own (and sometimes not even then :-) This does need to be read in conjunction with the original posting of April 6, 2004. Read the reply... 9:57:14 AM      Like to comment? []

	Wednesday, 14 April 2004

DNA ruling online The judgement against DNA is online. My first reading of it shows that the judge thought that the letters were misleading but were not invoices for 'unsolicted services'. Also reading between the lines it looks like auDA and/or ACCC did not present the best of cases. 9:10:08 PM      Like to comment? []

	Tuesday, 13 April 2004

Aoteaora Maori Internet Organisation press release on .maori.nz Aoteaora Maori Internet Organisation (AIMO) has issued a press release trying to raise the awareness of the maori.nz 2LD. Pretty much anything anyone can do to increase registrations in the 'lesser' 2LD is good. .maori.nz only has 308 names while .geek.nz which has been around for about half of the time has 610 name. 4:09:45 PM      Like to comment? []

AMIO posting on .maori.nz history I just came across the '.maori.nz History' posting on AMIO. I guess all the facts are not a requirement in this account. In my first reading I found about half a dozen items that would change the slant of this story if they were included or reported correctly. Several of them I have first hand knowledge as I was the Convenor of both of the .maori.nz applications. 10:29:04 AM      Like to comment? []

ComCom stops $500k from going to scumbags The NZ Herald and The Age/SMH each have very detailed stories on Domain Names [insert country name here] scam and the proceeds from it. The guts of the issue is the the Commerce Commission appears to have stopped greater than $500,000 going to these scumbags. This was done by seizing mail and stopping credit card payments. One new item is that Nominet, the .uk ccTLD is taking them to court over similar events around .uk renewals. 9:09:32 AM      Like to comment? []

	Friday, 9 April 2004

auda and DNA Part II Some interesting quotes on the court ruling: Chesley Rafferty (Director of DNA): Well Justice Finklestein passed judgement today, firstly he found that the notices that DNA sends to businesses were NOT "invoices" as so many people like to assert on this list. I suggest that these people make immediate changes to the use of that word in references to my notices. Of course I reserve my legal rights in the matter. Secondly, there are only a few parts of my notices that need to be modified, so guess what guys looks like your mate and DNA are here to stay. So rush outside and check your mail, there might be a letter or 20 waiting. Chris Dispain (CEO of auDA): I think it's OK to say that the notices are misleading and deceptive now because the Judge has found that the notice was misleading and deceptive. But hey, Chesley, if you're unhappy about my choice of words...... sue me. Oh and BTW Chesley, may I respectfully suggest you employ a new spin doctor...your attempt to throw a positive light on the judgement was disappointingly pathetic. 6:45:25 PM      Like to comment? []

.au Domain Administration Ltd v Domain Names Australia Pty Ltd A solictor for auDA has just reported the following on the dot au mail list: On 8 April 2004 Justice Finkelstein in the Federal Court of Australia delivered judgement in .au Domain Administration Ltd's (auDA) and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) separate proceedings against Domain Names Australia Pty Ltd (DNA) and Mr Chesley Paul Rafferty. His Honour found that notices sent by DNA in July and September 2003 to approximately 593,000 recipients in each Australian state other than Tasmania constituted conduct that was misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive in contravention of section 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA). Justice Finkelstein found that Mr Rafferty was knowingly concerned in DNA's contraventions of the TPA. His Honour held that neither DNA nor Mr Rafferty contravened section 64 of the TPA. Each of Domain Names Australia and Mr Rafferty will be subject to an injunction restraining them from further breaching s52 of the TPA for 3 years. The parties will make further submissions to the Court in due course in relation to the final form of the orders to be made and the future conduct of auDA's representative proceedings. A full copy of Justice Finkelstein's reasons for decision will shortly be available at the Australian Legal Information Institute's website http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/recent.html 6:20:07 PM      Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 1 April 2004

Comments and errors I have turned comments feature back on but I am not sure if it is saving the comments. If you can try and do a comment it would be great, if you could report any error it would be welcome for me to track down any bugs. 5:59:56 PM      Like to comment? []

Domain dispute questionnaires This is for those that thought about how many domain dispute questionnaires have been completed. Write your answer on a piece of paper (or tap it out in a program). No cheating now. Hands up all those that had 6 written down as the total number of completed questionnaires. Anyone, anyone at all? Thats right a total of 6 have been done some of which include more than one incident. Guess really high demand for a .nz dispute process eh? 5:30:31 PM      Like to comment? []

Joys of Google Try this Google search nz srs homepage. The first result is not what I would have expected, but then again it could explain a few things :-) 9:34:59 AM      Like to comment? []

What a lush! Seems lush.co.nz registrant was directing traffic to The Body Shop. For some reason Lush didn't like it and The Body shop claims it was not their idea. Article on Computer World with all the smelly details and ZDNet about how its all the fault of hackers! PS I do not know what it is with Lush stores but when I get within 20 feet (6 metres sounds so narf) of them the smell drives me up the wall. I think being forced to work in one of these stores must be a form of punishment! 9:28:33 AM      Like to comment? []