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ZADNA relaunches web.za domain

Tyson Ngubeni
By Tyson Ngubeni
Johannesburg, 24 Apr 2014
Registrations for new web.za SLDs will open along with .africa next month, according to ZADNA.
Registrations for new web.za SLDs will open along with .africa next month, according to ZADNA.

The ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA) has announced plans to relaunch the web.za second level domain (SLD), a decade after it stopped accepting new applications for domains of the same name.

The relaunch will be coordinated in line with the .africa domain and the three new citydomains - .joburg, .capetown and .durban - which are set to open for new registrations next month.

The web.za domain will be available to the public following "sunrise" and "landrush" phases where the rights of intellectual property holders will be prioritised and premium names delegated.

Vika Mpisane, CEO of ZADNA, says the relaunch "has been in the pipeline for a while, and that is why ZADNA ran a public consultation over web.za's charter to determine how the local community saw web.za fit in relation to the other second level domains.

"The feedback from the public consultation showed there was strong support behind relaunching web.za as an unrestricted domain along the same lines as .co.za. Accordingly, parties interested in web.za need not satisfy any eligibility requirements."

'Unrestricted alternative'

According to ZADNA, the return of web.za means South Africans have an "unrestricted alternative to .co.za domains, following numerous calls from the public to make another SLD available.

Before the relaunch of web.za, local applicants had no other choice for an unrestricted domain name apart from .co.za. "That meant if a person was interested in a name and the name was no longer available, they effectively had no other option in .za, and they would have to go to .com and other non-South African domains," says ZADNA in a statement.

According to ZADNA, other SLDs, such as .org, have certain eligibility requirements, which often impose restrictions on applicants.

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