The ZA Central Registry (ZACR), South Africa’s largest administrator of Internet domain names, has slammed .ZADNA, the regulator, over a proposal to open second-level .za domains for registration.
The proposal, which would allow for the registration of domains such as techcentral.za, is “exceptionally ill-timed”, the ZACR said in a statement on Monday.
It said there are several more important issues that need to be resolved first, and pushing ahead with allowing registrations of second-level .za domains could hamper that work.
“South Africa’s ICT sector is in a state of flux, with important documents currently before parliament, including the ICT Sector Commission & Tribunal Bill, which critically aims to give effect to the integrated ICT policy white paper,” the registry said.
“…Any rushed discussions around the complex domain-name industry threaten the highly-effective central registry model endorsed by the late communications minister, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri…” it added.
“We support in principle the ability to register new domain names immediately below the top-level domain. However, we cannot support the bad timing of a good idea,” said the ZACR’s CEO, Lucky Masilela, in the statement. “In addition, ZACR is not convinced that the current ease of registering and provisioning .za domains will continue under the proposed changes.”
Second-level registrations have not historically been available within the overarching .za domain. Instead, domain-name applicants have been able to register domain names at the third level in second-level domains such as ac.za, co.za, gov.za, org.za and net.za.
“Aside from poor timing, the .ZADNA discussion document also appears to put forward interfering with the administration of the .capetown, .durban and .joburg geographic top-level domains (gTLDs), which will not go down well with the delegator of these domains, Icann, which will see any moves in this direction as a gross violation of the gTLD delegation terms and conditions,” the ZACR said. — (c) 2018 NewsCentral Media
