Independent Review

The first independent review of New Zealand’s Domain Name Commission has found the organisation has been effective in its oversight of the .nz domain name industry, as well as to benchmark what it means to be a good self-regulator.

Purpose of the review

The DNCL is committed to working with others to meet the needs of consumers, service providers and the broader online community as a whole.

The review is a significant step in ensuring, that in a changing landscape, the Commission remains up to date with its approach to the oversight of the .nz domain name industry.

Process of the review

The Independent Reviewer, Mr David Pickens, conducted several interviews with stakeholders.

Those interviewed were a wide range of stakeholders, including the DNCL Board, Commerce Commission, New Zealand Police, APTLD, and other regulatory offices.

The draft report stage also involved public consultation, and there were submissions from a range of stakeholders.

Following the Draft Report, the Final Report was published along with both responses from InternetNZ and the Domain Name Commission. All Relevant documents can be found below.

Independent Review and Associated Documents

Independent Regulatory Review - 2019

01 August 2019

PDF 11 MB
Domain Name Commission Response to Regulatory Review

01 October 2019

PDF 7.4 MB
InternetNZ Response to Regulatory Review

29 November 2019

PDF 346 KB
Draft Regulatory Review Recommendations

01 June 2019

PDF 48 KB
Draft Regulatory Review

01 February 2019

PDF 842 KB
Independent Review Submission - Karaitiana Taiuru

29 April 2019

PDF 198 KB
Independent Review Submission - Jay Daley

05 June 2019

PDF 75 KB
Independent Review Submission - Metaname

09 April 2019

PDF 143 KB
Independent Review Submission - Leela Hendrix

05 June 2019

PDF 51 KB
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Completed Recommendations

1. Accessibility to registrants:

  • Chatbot ‘Any’ has been functioning and has been evaluated.
  • We have issued our BERL report on consumer interest, competition, and market concentration in the .nz market.

3. Market activity

  • New tools have been internally introduced to build on the collection, visualization, and dissemination of market statistics.
  • DNCL’s website has been successfully replaced. The newly launched website has a lot of enhanced functionality and a tableau-powered statistics display tool.
  • We have issued our BERL report on consumer interest, competition, and market concentration in the .nz market

9. International cooperation

  • Coordination of international engagement continues predominantly through our memberships of various international associations and networks.

11. Online harm minimization

  • Data validation work continues.
  • Work on early detection of abusive domain names.
  • Dependency on .nz policy review exists.

In progress recommendations

2. Management of .nz (90%)

  • The rewritten Operating Agreement is in place.
  • Work is underway with InternetNZ in terms of the Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) register.

4 . Organisational performance reporting (10%)

  • Information gathering is underway in terms of the main organisational performance measures to collect and publish.
  • Research has started into data classification and metrics in relation to enquiries data.
  • Enhancements made to reporting via the annual report.
  • Dependency on support from InternetNZ Research Team which is currently committed to supporting the registry replacement project.

5. Market activity (50%)

  • Dependencies exist in relation to ICANN current priorities and other work that relates to IRS (InternetNZ Registry System).

6. Market activity (70%)

  • Communication with relevant agencies such as the Commerce Commission has taken place.
  • Liaison has happened with the Overseas Investment Office regarding notifications of foreign company acquisitions in the .nz domain namespace.
  • MOU is in place with the Financial Markets Authority.
  • MOU is in place with the DIA Birth Deaths and Marriages.

7. Market activity (70%)

  • A dependency on the above point.

8. Organizational performance reporting (85%)

  • New measures have been developed to onboard new registrars.
  • Validation has been developed to offboard registrars.
  • An overall better and enhanced experience is underway with the new InternetNZ Registry System (IRS)

10. Local cooperation 

  • DNC Strategy for beyond 2022 working draft has been prepared.
  • Legal Compendium project and our idea will be kicking off soon to build a resource that experts can use for precedence during the Expert Determination Process. We will be launching a case notes summary on our DNC website and we are planning to cover case notes based on Complainant’s Rights, Identical or Similar to name or trademark, Unfair Registration, Cyber/Typosquatting and Confusing, misleading, or deceiving.

12 &13. Online harm minimization

  • Dependency on the new .nz policy review exists.

14. Online harm minimization (80%)

  • Data Validation process review and extra validation steps implemented.
  • Registrants’ awareness has been elevated via the DNCL shop safe campaign.
  • Dependency on the new .nz policy exists.
  • New tools have been introduced for early harm detection.
  • Working closely with DNS Abuse Institute to understand more details about early detection and classifications of harm in addition to participating in their upcoming pilots.

15. Māori Engagement (20%)

  • Dependency on the new .nz policy exists.
  • Recruitment by InternetNZ of Chief Māori Advisor is done.
  • InternetNZ appointment of Māori Design Group is done.
  • Collaboration with .iwi.nz  Moderator is done.
  • Further work is underway on dangerous speech directed at Māori and other communities.
  • Participated in the Te Tiriti o Waitangi training organized by InternetNZ.

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