The Domain Name Authority and UniForum SA, the .co.za administrator, have challenged a legal expert's claims that domain name parking is rampant in SA and that the Alternate Dispute Resolution for .za domains fails to address the issue.
Reinhardt Buys, a director at Buys Incorporated Attorneys, says because of an impasse in the law, domain name parking is rampant in SA, leaving many local companies powerless to acquire their rightful domains.
"In effect, any person can register any available trademark as a .co.za domain name and park it by not linking it to a Web site," he says.
The main reasons for this practice are to sell these domain names back to companies at highly inflated prices, or to simply prevent the use of a domain by a competitor, he says.
Buys claims local businesses are not the only ones affected by this abusive practice. Foreign trademark holders, whose names are parked as .co.za domains, are also guilty, he says.
Buys also questions the potential effectiveness of the newly-published Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) regulations for .za domains. He says the costs of resolution are too high compared to other countries, and the process is too long and complicated.
"Resolving similar disputes in Namibia and almost all other countries costs less than R10 000 and disputes are resolved within days," he says.
Factually inaccurate
Mike Silber, director of the .za Domain Name Authority, and Neil Dundas, who assisted in drafting the ADR regulations and acts as legal advisor to UniForum SA, have challenged Buys's assertions. They say there is no impasse in the law governing domain name disputes.
"I fail to understand the rationale behind Mr Buys's press release. It is factually inaccurate and seems little more than an attempt to generate self-serving publicity," Silber says.
"In the first place, domain parking is not rampant in SA and the South African Internet market has not advanced to the stage where domains can be monetised from parking."
Secondly, what Buys refers to as domain name parking is actually cybersquatting, and the ADR regulations provide a good framework to address the issue, Silber says.
Commenting on claims that SA overcharges for dispute resolution of domain names, Silber says the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, as adopted by ICANN for several of the generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), and adopted by a few countries and most of the newer gTLDs, has a fee structure of $1 500 for a single-person panel and $4 000 for a three-person panel. That is more than South Africans will pay for dispute resolution, he says.
Buys also says implementation of the ADR may be further delayed by litigation against UniForum SA regarding its governing agreement. However, Dundas notes the ADR implementation is driven by the rule of law, together with the cooperation of key role players, rather than (an unlikely) litigation against a private company.
The UniForum agreement will also have to be amended, as Buys claims, as the terms and conditions go beyond what is actually required by the Electronic Communications Act, Dundas says.
Quick resolution
Silber says the ADR regulations are intended to bring about quick and cost-effective resolution of disputes, within the context of a transparent, just and equitable process.
Key to quick implementation of the regulations and resolution of disputes is that the .za Domain Name Authority accredits service providers quickly and efficiently, Silber says.
Applications for accreditation received on or before 15 December are likely to be finalised by the end of January, Silber says.
The .za Domain Name Authority encourages all rights holders to assess the situation concerning their rights and the domains registered that affect such rights, he adds.
"Hopefully, a cost-effective and time-efficient process to deal with abusive registrations will be in place within the first quarter of 2007."
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