Government calls truce on .za

Johannesburg, 15 Nov 2002

Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri will next week introduce to the public an unexpected panel of kingmakers that will determine who will control the future of SA`s .za domain name suffix.

The Department of Communications today confirmed that the panel includes Mike Lawrie, the current administrator of .za, who has been consistently and implacably opposed to government control of the domain.

Joining him is lawyer Ryk Meiring, who has supported Lawrie as a member of Namespace, the body formed to take over Lawrie`s responsibilities.

The remainder of the panel will be made up of Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, CEO of state-owned signal distributor Sentech; Zodwa Manase, acting chairman of the State IT Agency (SITA); and a representative from the SA Bureau of Standards.

The five will select nine directors who will control the Domain Name Authority of SA, the body due to take over .za administration from Lawrie under the recent Electronic Communications and Transactions Act. The Act calls for an "independent selection panel consisting of five persons, who command public respect for their fair-mindedness, wisdom and understanding of issues concerning the Internet, culture, language, academia and business".

The appointment of the respected Lawrie and the outspoken Meiring will come as a welcome surprise to the Internet community, which has feared that incompetent government officials may take control over .za, potentially jeopardising the stability of the South African portion of the Internet.

However, the appointment of the two, who have been branded enemies by many in government, is also politically pragmatic. If Lawrie does not voluntarily hand over control to the new domain body, the result would likely be a protracted battle for control with international Internet bodies acting as referee. Even if the government emerged victorious, its plans would be significantly delayed.

Fighting for selection.co.za

The selection panel should, by law, draw on public nominations for the nine directors` posts. The nomination process has again left the Department of Communications with egg on its face and could potentially delay the establishment of the domain authority.

The initial call for nominations was published in one minor Sunday paper this week and on the 26^th page, the sports section, of the Sunday Times. It did not pass unnoticed, however, and many individuals and organisations are moving to submit names by the 29 November deadline.

But when Wayne Diamond, owner of Internet company HostCity, tried to put himself forward, he ran into technical difficulties. "I tried to e-mail the address given and it bounced back to me," he says.

On investigation, Diamond discovered that the domain on which the e-mail address is hosted, selection.co.za, was not registered. On Thursday morning he registered it in his own name.

"I want to make it clear to everybody that this was done in good faith," he says. He has set up the specific e-mail address, zapanel@selection.co.za, and says he has already received one nomination through it.

He has also established a Web site at the address which includes an e-mail form for nominations.

Diamond says he is in discussions with the department and has offered to automatically forward nominations to it, without human intervention, but does not necessarily want to give up the domain itself.

For its part, the department is still trying to determine how the slip-up happened and is not yet prepared to accept any offer. It considers Diamond to be a cyber-squatter and says it will explore legal ways of regaining control of the domain.