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South Africa Wants Control of .za

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-holds-barred dept.

fdiaz5583 writes "Recently, the South African government wants to seize control of the .za domain. However, ICANN owns the domains and under the ICANN rules, they will not relinquish control. Mike Lawrie who is global administrator of domain names states: 'If it becomes illegal for me to do the job under South African law and if I am not authorized by ICANN to hand over the administration, the .za domain will have to shut down until the issue is cleared up'." We mentioned this tussle earlier. The .za administrator doesn't like the way the government is going about this; the government, of course, has men with guns, so it's not like he's going to win in the end, it's only a question of how ugly it will get.

6 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Similar to .au recently? by saihung · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who should, rightfully, get control of a country's top-level names? I have no doubt that Mr. Lawrie has done a good job, and for years with no pay at that, but he also isn't the one who built the infrastructure. I am not convinced that the government is always the best administrator, but why is looking to an undemocratic, unrepresentative corporation like ICANN any better?

    1. Re:Similar to .au recently? by mav[LAG] · · Score: 5, Interesting
      No one here in South Africa minds who controls .za as long as a) it works and b) it's managed according to the RFC and the informal rules that the late John Postel put in place circa. 1985. The local Internet community are totally opposed to the ridiculous provisions of Section X of the Government's Electronic Communications and Transactions Bill.(Some of the other sections are equally idiotic but let's stay focused here).
      Specifically they want to replace the non-profit organisation Namespace (whom Mike Lawrie consults to) with a huge unwieldy bureaucracy that will cost the taxpayers millions and is overseen by the Communications Minister. In other words, a simple administrative function that has been performed superbly by a single highly-competent individual over the last decade will now be replaced by an eighteen person board of directors whose salary bill alone is millions per year. Not only that but the Government's spin on the whole debacle is that they are imposing some form of democracy on the current evil monopoly that Mike Lawrie has subjected us all to.
      This is complete bullshit. Mike Lawrie and Namespace have repeatedly tried to get the Government involved in ccTLD administration with no success for many years now. The Department of Communications, led by two politicians whose only qualities seem to be an equal balance of power hungriness, greed and incompetence (Ivy and Andile - yes, this means you two) say that Government control over .za will lead to some kind of new era of Internet prosperity where all people in our country will suddenly get Internet access.
      A few facts are in order.
      • The South African Government cannot even manage it's own name servers - let alone the whole country's. Five out of six of them are currently mis-configured or not working. If they do take over and .za suddenly goes dark for a few days because of some technical or beauracratic cock-up, our economy will suffer enormously.
      • Internet access for all is dependent on our telecommunications infrastructure and policy - which The Department of Communications has - to put it politely - completely fscked up over the last eighteen months.
      • The Department has not taken on board 1% of the industry advice it has pretended to listen to since it was taken over by the two current fools. Together they have crippled our local telecoms regulator so much that the incumbent phone monopoly can charge what it likes without fear of being slapped down.

      And yes, as a South African journalist who's been following this saga for quite some time, I don't mind saying that I'm really pissed off.
      --
      --- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
  2. As a concerned citizen... by Bollie · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As a citizen of this banana^H^H^H^H^H^H^H wonderful republic (I don't know anymore) of South Africa, I just have to give you my unbiased opinion:

    I'm biased.

    It seems lately I've developed a knee-jerk reaction to anything Microsoftian and/or coming from this two-bit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H democratically elected leadership. When I see stupidity, I really dislike it. Unfortunately, it looks like it's on the rise.

    To the world out there, I can only say a couple of things:
    1. What do you expect of a country where the Prez does not believe HIV causes AIDS?
    2. What do you expect of a country where the government telecommunications monopoly is so bad that more people have cellphones than landlines?
    3. What do you expect of a country where everyone votes for the same party, regardless whether they messed up, promise to mess up or promise not to mess up again then mess up?


    To the couple of South Africans who are reading this I just want to say:
    1. Hoesit!
    2. I recommend Prozac, and in large doses.
    3. Keep our humour, it's the only national emblem we have.


    That's it. Sit back and watch the show people, I can guarantee you will be entertained!
  3. Common Sense... by Tim12s · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Top level domains should obviously be controlled and administered by the government of the country they represent. The .za domain is the zone of an entire country. The name registrar is therefore a monopoly of services, and all monopolies should be regulated. The government should delegate management to a (private) organisation that is able to provide the quality services that are required. If that company does not provide the services, then the government should choose a different company.

    Thats the same as the US government not having regulatory control over their own airwaves/airspace. Crazy.

    ---

    The real beef is that governments are historically less speedy in providing the services required, but this should not prevent any government from having regulatory authority over the naming and addressing of the internet within its own borders.

    ---

    -Tim
    A South African.

    ---

    I dont like the idea of potentially putting a company out of business because of governemental involvement, but some of the proposed regulatory changes will have to happen at some point in the future, in many places in the world.

    Q?: Why should ICANN have a whip over the internet naming of an entire country? ICANN should recognise the regulations of govermental regulation of its namespace.

  4. Zuid Afrika by amstrad · · Score: 5, Informative

    ZA is the ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 designation for South Africa.

    It is from the Dutch, Zuid Afrika

    SA is Saudi Arabia

  5. This makes little sense by dgym · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why should the government or indeed anyone in South Africa claim right to a convention that is used by the entire world to simply refer to them?

    .za should not belong to South Africa because it refers to them, .za belongs to every single entity on the internet (using the current domain name system) because it is there to serve us as a reference to South Africa.

    I think if myself and the other residents on my street joined together and tried to seize control of our postal code (after all, it is how people send stuff to our street) we would be laughed at because it makes no sense.

    Now I realise that puchasing of domain names has lead to a way of thinking that domain names belong to their owners, and therefor who better to own a country wide domain name than a body in that country, but I feel that is a misconception.

    A more correct term for purchasing domain names is registering domain names (which can involve the transfer of money) which actualy implies the assignment of rights rather than the assignment of ownership. You get the exclusive right to have that name point at you, but it is never owned because it is just a name, and it belongs to the people using it to refer to you as much as anyone else.

    Now what would help people (myself included) understand the situation better is an explaination of what you can actually do once you have 'seized control of .za'. Is this actually an issue?

    Please would someone care to explain the implications of such a situation. If it has all sorts of potential implications on how the internet or other global systems could pan out then it would be of great interest if these were explored in detail, otherwise who has control of a domain name seems rather irrelevant news.