The government`s Department of Communications has announced its intention to lodge an application with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), claiming the domain name southafrica.com as the property of the South African government.
WIPO is a treaty organisation and acts as an agency of the United Nations.
"SA intends to establish a portal that would be used as a strategic marketing tool in promoting trade and tourism, among other things [on the domain name]," the government said in a statement. "It will also be a key element of a project aimed at promoting the image of the country internationally."
Greg Paley, the American owner of the URL, is not very happy with the move.
"This is an absolute farce," he said in a telephonic interview. "Is somebody going to stop AOL [America Online] from using America in its name? Where do you draw the line?
The domain is owned by Virtual Countries, a privately held company based in Seattle. Paley, president and CEO of the company, says he was the first registrant to claim the name in 1995 and has since invested both sweat and money in it.
Vertical Countries also owns domains such as Algeria.com, Germany.com and Scotland.com, and says it has never had similar claims from other governments.
"This is a first for us," says Paley.
Under dispute
The Department of Communications says it will lodge an application with WIPO, which has handled several high-profile domain name disputes before, by 10 November and expects an outcome within 45 days.
"We also intend to take this matter up in international forums, the first being the upcoming meeting of ICANN [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers] in November where we hope to table a proposal that ICANN adopt a position that recognises the rights of countries to have first right over their domain names," said Andile Ngcaba, director general of the department, in the statement.
Paley said he has had dealings with Ngcaba before.
"I had a call from the gentleman who told me that it was appalling that an 'Anglo company`, as he called it, would tread on the sovereignty of SA." He identifies the gentleman in question as Ngcaba, and says other officials previously contacted him with offers to buy the domain. He says the sum offered was "in excess of six figures in US dollars".
Although the domain name Southafrica.net is registered to the SA embassy in Washington, the department says it has a right to Southafrica.com.
"In the current environment, the most dominant high-level domain name is the 'dot-com` address," it said in the statement. "With the number of domain names expected to double within the next two years, the simplicity of the domain name and its obvious association with a particular product or activity or organisation is critical to ensuring that millions of Internet users can easily find the site they are looking for."
Paley cites several examples of country-linked domains, such as Japan.com, Ireland.com and Canada.com being owned by publicly-traded companies. "If you look at the site itself I think it is very positive for SA. It is not government controlled and there is no censorship, so it actually fosters open discussion. People like the fact that we are not government controlled and [the site] is sometimes used to express dissatisfaction with the government there."
The site has an active guest book and discussion boards, and Paley says "tens of thousands of people from all over the world" use it as meeting place. He does not believe the government has only pure motives in its pursuit of the name.
"I believe they want to commercially exploit the name and profit from it, using our hard work, our marketing and our equity, and take it lock, stock and barrel."
Freedom of speech
He also says the issue has free speech implications.
"They want to stop free speech. They want to stop a US business from allowing people in SA to congregate on a site to discuss issues close to their hearts in a forum not controlled by them. If they want a travel site, let them apply for the Southafrica.travel domain when it becomes available. Dot-com is for commercial interests."
He maintains that the site is not for sale, "although everything has its price", that the name is not being held hostage, and that his company is not speculating in domain names. He has vowed to fight the application all the way.
"We will fight this on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of other people with such domains. This sets a bad precedent. It is bad for free speech, it is bad for the Internet and it is bad for business."
The department denied some of Paley`s allegations but would not immediately comment on specific issues.
Related stories:
UN agency broadens fight against cybersquatters
Related Web links:
http://www.southafrica.com
http://www.virtualcountries.com
Share