August 2019
Message from the Commissioner
Kia Ora,
Reputations for independent self-regulators take time to build. Compared to the Auditor-General, or the Ombudsman, which have existed for many decades, the Domain Name Commission is young - just 17 years old.
It is therefore only fitting that we step back to look at how the regulatory system for .nz is working and what we may need to change in the future to adapt to a dynamic online world while maintaining the strengths of our current framework.
How best can we showcase our world-leading model of being a responsible custodian of the .nz domain name space for all persons and organisations with an interest in .nz domain names? An Independent review seems like the best answer.
We thank David Pickens for producing his thought-provoking first-ever independent regulatory review into the Commission. The report found “the DNCL is a sound and competent regulator of the .nz space”. It is highly regarded internationally and with small exceptions, the .nz policies and the enforcement of those standards were viewed as appropriate.
In the area of Internet-related harm, in particular, harm caused by websites associated with a .nz domain name, the report suggested we should be doing more to understand the issue in order to effectively target real problems with the best tools available.
We’ve accepted all the recommendations in the report and published our response. Over the next few months, we will be busy designing a programme of work to address the report's findings and recommendations.
This quarter, staff at the Commission are supporting the work of InternetNZ with its end to end .nz policy review. There are big issues to grapple with, such as how to deal with Internet-related harm in the .nz domain name space, unwelcomed communications, website content removal and phishing attacks which traditionally have been outside of our jurisdiction. You can follow the Policy Advisory Panel’s progress by reading Sue Chetwin, Chair of the Panel’s blog.
Further afield, we’re looking forward to international participation at the Asia Pacific Top Level Domains meeting in Malaysia and e-safety Conference in Sydney to share our response to Christchurch events and reforms to the disputes resolution process as well as being able to answer questions from conference-goers.
For your calendar, Nethui 2019 is taking place on 3-4 October at Te Papa, Wellington. The .nz Policy Advisory Committee wants to hear your views on .nz domain name issues as well as we will be giving an update on tackling .nz domain name abuse since meeting with stakeholders in November last year at the domain name abuse forum.
Hope to see you at NetHui, and enjoy this month’s news below.
Ngā Mihi,
Brent
Independent review
Read the Commission’s first regulatory review, now published.
Download the Independent Review [pdf]
Download the response from Domain Name Commission Ltd [pdf]
Dispute resolution service review
We are currently in the final days of our public consultation on re-imagining the Dispute Resolution Service. The service currently gives complainants a mediation and determination pathway to resolve their .nz domain name disputes. Check out the feedback we’ve received so far on our online mural board from our online engagement and co-design workshops in Auckland and Wellington.
We’ve published some written submissions, and are accepting late traditional submissions through to Monday 18 September 2019. Our substantive co-design work has now been wrapt up and we have one more insights workshop with Creative HQ to pull all the work together into a solutions paper.
We’ll be providing our paper to the .nz Policy Advisory Committee to help shape the future of the dispute resolution service as well as implementing any changes that are already permissible under existing policy.
If you have feedback on .nz dispute management email it to us now at [email protected].
Quarterly .nz report
We’ve started publishing compliance data as part of .nz’s short snapshot reports on a quarterly basis. It’s our first attempt so let us know if it hits the mark.
Interesting compliance insights from this quarter are:
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32 names cancelled
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nine disputes started
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four disputes closed.
Read the one-page snapshot report.
NZDNC is now part of New Zealand Legal Information database
NZDNC is now part of New Zealand Legal Information database.
All of our Dispute Resolution decisions can be found on the NZLII database. Use identifier nzdnc to see a history of all the decisions.
NetHui 2019
New Zealand’s high energy Internet event will be in Wellington at Te Papa 3-4 October. You can register for the event here (https://nethui2019.lilregie.com/voucher/3ZMM9ARQ) Tickets cost $100. Applications close 9 pm on 1 September for NetHui fellowships which will give fellows free attendance.
New Staff
We’re excited to have two new team members and to be fully staffed with five employees.
Cameron has joined us from the Department of Internal Affairs. In his previous role, Cameron was responsible for liaising with various local and central government agencies about domain name system matters including registering new .govt domains. Cameron has responsibilities for the implementation of our Deloitte compliance strategy.
Ann will be joining the Commission on 16 September from Doha. Ann previously worked for the Qatar government as a Senior Technical Support Engineer for the .qa Country Code Top Level Domain administrator. Ann is well known to the international internet community being active in the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers ( ICANN) and Middle East Network Operators Group. She will be leading the programme of work to implement the Pickens findings and recommendations as well as bolstering our technical and international expertise at the Commission.
Welcome, Cameron and Ann!
You can email our new team members and all other staff at [email protected] to discuss compliance, enforcement and dispute resolution for the .nz domain name space.
Did you know?
To ensure that we are keeping .nz safe and secure, the Domain Name Commission can handle complaints relating to .nz domain names. Read more about the types of complaints we can handle.
Feedback
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Media and articles that caught our attention
