The South African Domain Name Authority (zaDNA) will today publish its regulations governing the administration of .za domains for public comment.
The authority's regulations have been a long time in the making. Vika Mpisane, GM at the authority, says the new regulations have been drafted with as much industry input in mind as possible.
Registration of South African Web domains has traditionally been in the hands of several local organisations. Uniform SA currently provides support for .co.za, Internet Solutions for org.za and the State IT Agency governs .gov.za.
Mpisane says many of the .za domains will now be brought together under a central registration process. The exclusive domains, like org.za and gov.za, will not be included in the centralised system. A single organisation will instead be licensed to manage them.
Internet service providers (ISPs) often register domain names for customers, and the new regulations will also cover the way in which ISPs will do this.
While the authority has not decided on the licence fees, Mpisane says zaDNA will not make them excessive.
He says the industry will be invited to public workshops either late next week, or early the week after, to discuss the proposed regulations and make contributions.
The South African Internet space is stable, and the authority says its largest concern is to maintain that stability. Mpisane adds that the regulations will be implemented slowly and with care to prevent chaos in the migration process.
While the authority is flexible on the deadline for public submissions, it has tentatively set 18 December as the cut-off date.
Mpisane says the authority will also be available for individual meetings with ISPs and registration organisations should they need more clarity, or have more sensitive information to discuss.
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