Re: Draft New Draft

[Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>]

At 09:22 11/02/99 +0900, Kilnam Chon wrote:
>some of the cases in Asia-Pacific to enrich the discussion.
>
[John B.]
>> There are VERY few ccTLDs which are run with NO contact with their
>> governments (Mexico maybe?).
>
>New Zealands is the notable case.
>

Thank you for enriching the discussion, professor. It's all the priming I
need.

Domainz is run as a business that has to turn a profit (for whom is not
clear, as the members of ISOCNZ are forbidden by law to profit from their
creation) of which the tax department takes 33%.  ISOCNZ is it's sole
shareholder. 

1.The council that runs ISOCNZ is dominated by its Chairman and a number of
government employees in a private capacity. 
2. The NZ  Govt. Commerce Department approved of the operations of Domainz,
when a challenge was brought under the Commerce Act.

This is what Roger Hicks (a former councillor) said last year: (see dejaNews)
****************
|> > What is the situation with the .nz TLD?
|> > Has ISOCNZ ever received the official blessing of the NZ government to
|> > manage the country code Domain space?
|>  
(another member)
|> No it hasn't.  There is no legislation or regulation in place covering
|> the management of the DNS in NZ.  There may well be a number of rteasons
|> for this but I imagine one is that it has never occurred to them to do
|> so, and also that they have not percieved 'market failure' - which these
|> days is about the only reason this particular Government brings in
|> regulation.

In the early days of ISOCNZ being involved with the policies for the .nz
domain I had some informal discussions with relevant concerning the
interests and role of the NZ Government and was clearly given the message
that it was an industry issue.

Regards
R.
**************************************

Mind you, New Zealand is exceptional in its official fervor to keep
Government (officially) out of interfering in the market, all the while
maintaining old-style producer boards for agricultural commodities.

ISOCNZ has around 90 members, of which about a dozen are local companies.
(yes, also MSFT)
In theory, the membership is open, but in reality the membership has been
static for the last 2 years. In spite of promises to expand the membership,
in reality no efforts have been made to involve other stakeholders.
Critics are silenced. The council's deliberations are not public.

A proposal from a newly elected councillor to expand the membership to DN
holders has been given the silent treatment. Subsequently this councillor
himself has felt the heavy hand of Domainz and had to sever his business
relationship as a registrar with Domainz. 

>> > 15. .nz    26,928 - Domainz - Private not-for-profit established by
ISOC New
>> > Zealand

ISOCNZ is not an ISOC chapter.

NZ is probably not the worst case, but I wonder in how many ccTLD
situations where the government is (officially) not involved, the scenario
is similar.

--Joop--
http://www.democracy.org.nz/model.html