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Kia ora

Like the rest of New Zealand, we're online working away from the office.

With more people online so increases the likelihood of more reporting of enquiries related to .nz.

Our contact centre remains open and we continue to liaise closely with our online safety partners to triage reports of .nz domain names associated with online safety problems.

For the time being, we haven't seen an influx of reports of suspicious looking .nz domain names.

Regardless of the lockdown, we're getting ready for the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Names and Pacific Internet Governance Forum launching 6-9 September. Two years ago, we bid for New Zealand to support Fiji to bring the event to the Pacific. It’s great to see this multi stakeholder event taking shape and nearly ready for launch.

While it’s disappointing not to be meeting in person, with the support of ConferenceNZ and various global partners we've helped to produce an amazing online and virtual experience for the region.

There are now more than 7 hub countries and over 450 delegates. If you are interested in participating please register at APTLD80’s site. For once, an international conference of this significance is in a New Zealand friendly time zone!

Last month we published our 3rd annual transparency report, more about that below.

In the coming month we'll be sending out information about our annual #ShopSafeNZ campaign which will be launching late October. Now in its third year, this year we have a brand new website to launch and the results of our consumer research into fake webshops. There will also be more ways for our supporters to keep .nz safe for everyone.

If you’d like to become a supporter of #ShopSafeNZ email us and we will make sure to include you in our outreach efforts.

Ngā mihi

Brent Carey
Domain Name Commissioner

Updates from the team

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Recently we had the privilege of receiving cultural training in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It was a great gift to have CORE Education’s Janelle Riki-Waaka and Dr Hana O’Regan expertly take us on a journey through the history of Aotearoa connecting us with key events and the impact on us as a nation and for Māori.

Transparency report

Our 2020/2021 report is now available. This report is a break down of requests we received between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021. This is about being open and honest about the requests we receive for our domain name holder’s personal information that can’t be accessed through a .nz query search.

Dispute resolution service

New High Court decision – Maharishi Foundation Inc v Benner [2021] NZHC [29 July 2021]

The plaintiff applied for a summary judgment on the basis that the defendant held the legal title to the domain name tm.org.nz. as a bare trustee for the plaintiff.

The plaintiff relied on three main points for its application:

a phone call conversation with a former national director of MFI and the defendant discussing the registration of the domain name on behalf of MFI whereby the defendant would hold the legal title on trust;
the defendant allowed MFI to use the domain name for its purposes for a continuous period of 23 years; and
an email exchange between the defendant and a former member of MFI in which it is inferred the domain name was held on trust.

The defendant rejected the claim and argued that he bought and held the domain name for the purposes of advancing the Transcendental Meditation movement. In support of that claim, the defendant submitted a historic version of the domain name web page which included a disclaimer stating it had been “prepared privately as a public service to inform the general public” of the movement.

In the result, the Court dismissed MFI’s application for summary judgment having found the defendant’s position sufficiently credible.

Read High Court decision via nzlii.org

Update for .nz domain name holder

730,985 action domains, 47,735 domains transferred this year, 74,299 domains created this year

Did you know…

The .nz registry, as at 31 August, reached more than 730,000 active domain name registrations. This is an all-time maximum, and looks set to keep climbing as more people get themselves online. Current numbers appear on our home page.

Domain Name Tip for domain name holders - Transfer pitfalls

When a domain name transfers to a different domain registrar we recommend that you double check the following afterwards.

Nameservers: Check to make sure the right nameservers are still listed for the domain name. At times, the nameservers may default to the registrars default nameservers. This isn’t uncommon.
Registration information: Check your registration information - this might differ from the account information. Find out how to to search for a domain name on our website.
Check your date billed until: We also recommend that you check your date billed until as well, this is when your registration fees are next due.

Updates for industry

Join us for the registrar forum sessions

The registry replacement third registrar technical forum which is a technical forum focused on the technical side of the registry change took place online on Tuesday 17 Aug 8.30 AM NZDT with .nz registrars who have opted to join this forum as part of the registry replacement project engagement work.

The main focus of this forum was on data migration with an assessment on the current .nz register data quality. There’s still time to join registrar forum sessions. Please email registry.replacement@internetnz.net.nz

InternetNZ will be publishing the forums meeting notes and presentations soon.

Domain name registrations

We continue to notice a number of .nz domain names that have “domain manager” or “domain admin” listed as the registrant.

Under .nz domain name policy, this is not allowed. The .nz domain name must be registered to individuals over the age of 18, or properly constituted organisations.

Domain names that are registered to domain managers or similar registrants become problematic when there are disputes over the ownership of the domain name, as well as when trying to contact the registrant to validate their registration information.

If this is you, please contact your domain name provider, or our team at info@dnc.org.nz

Outreach and engagement

AMINZ conference, Rotorua

We attended the annual AMINZ conference this year in Rotorua with the theme: He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata (It is people, it is people, it is people).

Below are three takeaways from the keynote presentation by Paulette Brown, Former President of the American Bar Association and the first woman of colour to hold the position. Paulette spoke of diversity and inclusion in organisations. The things she said that organisations could be doing right now were:

Be critically self aware of your organisation. Do a self assessment on an organisation’s understanding of conscious and unconscious bias. Ask who is in the organisation. Think on an individual basis does everyone look like me?
Have the difficult conversations to have a better understanding of perspectives. Walk towards things that are uncomfortable. That helps to move an organisation forward. Where things are structurally baked in, examine them to see where you are not being fair. Be more fair.
Address imbalance by being more equitable. Some people need additional tools and resources given where they are in life. Privilege needs to be understood. Give people additional opportunities.

Follow Us on Twitter & LinkedIn

Be sure to follow the us on Twitter & LinkedIn. We have committed to sharing content regularly there on a daily and weekly basis. The perfect way to stay connected and informed in between newsletters.

Interesting news

Upcoming events

Feedback

And, as always, please give us feedback via email info@dnc.org.nz or on Twitter (@nzdnc). What topics do you want to hear more about, what bullet above is your favourite? What do you want more or less of?

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