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Kia ora

It was a pleasure to attend the pōhiri of InternetNZ’s new Chief Executive, Vivien Maidaborn in mid-October. Vivien’s appointment was announced in July this year and is significant for the Commission as Vivien is also the new Chair of the Domain Name Commission’s board. It is clear from our first meetings that Vivien is passionate about creating equitable outcomes for communities in Aotearoa and the Internet provides many opportunities — and challenges — to make a real impact for people. We welcome Vivien to the team and look forward to working with her as the Commission chair.

On 1 November, InternetNZ successfully deployed the new .nz Registry System. It is an exciting time for the Commission as we learn how to interact with the new world-class platform and implement slight changes to our work and the terminology we use. As we move into this new space, we’ll be looking for efficiencies in the way we work and how we can better respond to the public’s enquiries and concerns.

At this time of the year, Christmas shopping is on the agenda for many of us. We are proud to be acting to make the .nz name space safer by responding to any scams reported involving a .nz domain name, and we’d like to hear about any you come across. Watch out for our third #ShopSafeNZ campaign in late November, working with Netsafe to promote tips for avoiding scams in the lead-up to Christmas.

Ngā mihi

Isobel Egerton
Interim Domain Name Commissioner

Updates from the team

New registry goes live

The new .nz Registry System, a world-class platform that uses industry-standard protocols, was successfully deployed by the InternetNZ team on 1 November. A big congrats to the team and everyone involved, including some of our team at the Commission.

With the new registry we are welcoming a new set of .nz Rules. The Rules will provide a more coherent policy framework that is linked in a user-friendly way for parties involved in the .nz domain name space.

.nz policies

So what does a new registry mean for the Commission?

Over the coming days and weeks, you will see a few minor changes to the Domain Name Commission website. We have a quick update on what some of those changes are.

Changes to our website

Transparency report

Each year we publish our Transparency Report that details key statistics on the use of the privacy option, domain name suspension numbers, and requests for domain name holder personal information from third parties. Our 2021/2022 report is now published.

2021/2022 transparency report

#ShopSafeNZ campaign

On Monday 28 November we are releasing our #ShopSafeNZ campaign. We will be sharing our safer online messages to help New Zealanders pick up on some tell-tale signs of a fake online store. If you would like to become a supporter, you can sign up on our website.

Become a #ShopSafeNZ supporter

Interesting news and media

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?