.nz news & views

List of all DNC authorised registrars is available with .nz domain name pricing and other details. Please be advised that the list is out of date but it will be updated in future.

	Wednesday, 25 April 2007

I could not have said it better
Interview with Karl Auerbach

Karl, what do you think of the ICANN - Verisign contract, which essentially provides for default renewal of the .com contract with Verisign? Do you think ICANN could have resolved its litigation with Verisign in a more favorable fashion?

As for Verisign - wow, ICANN and NTIA have been like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny to Verisign. It was utterly outrageous how ICANN let its outside attorney give all of those gifts to Verisign in at least three distinct contracts. As I said on the phone, Verisign's negotiating team is so good at negotiating the pants off of ICANN and NTIA that we ought to send 'em to the Middle East to work out a peace settlement. It is amazing how ICANN and NTIA transformed Verisign's job to maintain .com, .net, and .org into permanent ownership. It's as if the US National Park service were to give the entire Grand Canyon to the company that was hired to run the hotel.
11:03:40 PM Like to comment? []

	Sunday, 8 April 2007

Veri$ign does the unexpected, not!
So last week InternetNZ announced a drop in domain name fees to $1.50 per month ($18 per annum). This was a 14% drop. Now you have to realise that .nz has less than 275,000 names (actually about 270,000).

So VeriSign manages about 65 million names under .com and .net. Of course due to the efficiencies they are increasing the price 7% to $6.42 (USD).

So lets do the math, 65 million names up 7%. 0.27 million names down 14%.

PS When I mean efficiencies I mean that of creating contracts with ICANN and not any directed toward customers.
4:05:22 PM Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 23 March 2006

Does it really matter?
It is with some amusement I find myself very busy for next week. However my next week is not related to the first, and hopefully only, ICANN meeting in Wellington. I am off to LinuxWorld in Sydney something that actually has a technical focus, unlike ICANN.

I commented after finding out that we had ~~lost~~ won the 'right' to host the ICANN meeting that whatever was planned would mean nothing and it would just be hijacked by what other crisis event was occurring at the time. Much like every other ICANN meeting. The more things change the more they remain the same. This meeting like all ICANN meetings is much ado about nothing. Those that 'talk it up' are just those that gain their power by being involved in this process. Wouldn't be great if a ICANN meeting was held and no one showed up and would anyone care?

In my opinion the only part of ICANN that really impacts the ccTLD's is IANA. This is also not part of ICANN, ICANN just performs those duties on behalf of the US Government. Now with the Verisign agreement providing ICANN with millions of dollars direct from the monolopy agreement then ICANN can drop the final pretence of 'consulting' the community in these side shows called 'ICANN meetings'.

Enough of this ramble. I wanted to get if off my chest. Anyone want to take bets on how many press releases come out that actually say nothing, both during and after the meeting?
10:47:15 AM Like to comment? []

	Friday, 18 November 2005

WSIS round up
As the publishing issue took so long to fix I have not blogged on the WSIS issue. The following is a round up of stories that I think cover the issue:

2:10:41 PM Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 17 November 2005

kiwiblog has text of agreement
David Farrar has the text of the draft agreement. I only looked on his site after I saw the BBC headline.
12:11:24 AM Like to comment? []

Agreement reached pre Tunis meeting
BBC is reporting that an agreement has been reached before the Tunis WSIS meeting regarding the recent Internet Governance 'issue'. Have to wait for more detail but do you really think David Gross said "anything that will create any problems for the private sector"?

Further information at Dutch site called ComputerPartner. Looks like this is just hitting the news wires now. In the morning should be lots of coverage.
12:00:26 AM Like to comment? []

	Thursday, 13 October 2005

Twomey quoted in The Guardian
The Guardian has a story on titled EU says internet could fall apart. Thanks to Bret Faustt I was alerted to a quote from Paul Twomey, ICANN CEO. It is:

"We expect to evolve, we expect to keep changing. We are concerned about stability [of the internet] and we think it's best to evolve existing institutions. Our present corporate structure is a matter of history, not of any particular design."

Bret outlines some of the recent changes to ICANN in his post but I would like to point out that ICANN was created in the manner it was to get 'the nod' from the USA government. Others were also trying to 'win the prize' but ICANN got it, partly based on the corporate structure and that Jon Postel was going to be the CTO. But hey, if you repeat a lie often enough its becomes fact right?
11:42:05 AM Like to comment? []

	Tuesday, 11 October 2005

The Economist and Karl Auerbach
Bret Fausett has links to a story in The Economist regarding ICANN and the UN. As it is subscriber only he posted the story for all to read. I guess lawyers in the US don't have to worry about copyright! :-)

Bret also links to Karl Auerbach's followup which he titled "Clueless Editorial". I actually read Karls followup before reading The Economist article. Karl is one of the three former At Large directors elected onto the ICANN board and is by far the most well known. He also has sued ICANN, and won, about access to company documents as a director.
2:46:12 PM Like to comment? []

	Sunday, 9 October 2005

Kieren McCarthy has an article called Breaking America's grip on the net on The Guardian. The best summary of this story is:

After troubled negotiations in Geneva, the US may be forced to relinquish control of the internet to a coalition of governments.

Things are happening faster than I expected.
10:02:41 PM Like to comment? []

gTLD