The Department of Communications has confirmed that it has not abandoned the fight for the SouthAfrica.com domain name, and that it still intends to lodge arbitration with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in terms of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) domain name dispute resolution policy.
Official spokesmen were not available to comment, but a reliable source says the department had invested substantial resources in the fight and never had any intention of withdrawing.
UK Web site TheRegister and local publication Computerweek recently both published articles to the effect that the government "has abandoned its fight to own the domain name SouthAfrica.com".
The articles were based on comments by Maxim Waldbaum, a senior partner in law firm Salans, which represented SouthAfrica.com owner Virtual Countries in a lawsuit which attempted to block the government from turning to WIPO for arbitration.
Referring to an 18 June judgement which dismissed the Virtual Countries blocking action, Waldbaum said "the cloud that SA attempted to put on Virtual Countries` title to the domain name has passed" as it indicated that SA would lose any arbitration it entered into.
Waldbaum was apparently referring to a single line in the nine-page judgement, in which judge Allen Schwartz refers to a move by the government to change the rules of domain name disputes involving geographic names.
"Further, Republic has affirmatively represented that it will not commence an arbitration in WIPO or other organisation under existing UDRP [Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy] procedures, which suggest that it will wait to see how WIPO and ICANN resolve the proposed changes before deciding on a course of action," the judgement reads.
Ryk Meiring, who has been following the dispute as head of local law firm Spoor & Fisher`s IT and e-commerce law division, says the ruling does not prevent the government from proceeding with its efforts.
"In fact, the ruling opens the way so that SA can lodge a domain name dispute with WIPO and ICANN," he says.
Meiring believes the government has taken notice of recent arbitration decisions on geographic names where the geographic representative organisations were unsuccessful in claiming domains, and says prudence may mean delay in going to WIPO. In the meanwhile, moves to change the rules may ensure success.
"[Government submissions to WIPO and ICANN] may have the results that these kind of disputes will be handled in a different way," he says. "I don`t think they will be handled in the same way as other domain disputes in the future."
In claiming at least a partial victory, Salans may be trying to keep Virtual Countries afloat in difficult times. In court papers, the company claimed that the claim by the South African government had scared off investors, leading to direct economic loss.
CEO Greg Paley said in a declaration that company cash flow and morale had been negatively affected, that potential business partners had withdrawn from deals and that the company had to sell one of its domains, Switzerland.com, simply to stay afloat. The company is privately held.
Virtual Countries and Salans could not immediately be reached for comment.
Related ITWeb stories:
SA government 1, Virtual Countries 0
Company sues to block South African domain-name bid
Government wants Southafrica.com
External links:
US dotcom keeps ownership of SouthAfrica.com (The Register)
US dot-com keeps ownership of SouthAfrica.com (Computerweek)
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