Slim hopes for .za redelegation

Johannesburg, 27 Jun 2002

The Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Bill is expected to become law within two weeks when signed by Thabo Mbeki.

The Bill this week passed through Parliament virtually unopposed, with a vote in the National Council of Provinces on Tuesday mirroring debate in the National Assembly where only official opposition party the Democratic Alliance voted against it.

Several initiatives are underway to sway the president not to sign the Bill in its current format, but with no dissent on it from within the ANC or associated bodies, observers think it unlikely that Mbeki will exercise his power to delay the legislation.

Yet an international body seems close to stopping the implementation of at least one portion of the Bill.

The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) holds the ultimate authority over the .za suffix for local domain names. Chapter 10 of the ECT Bill calls for the creation of a government organ to take control of .za, but Namespace, the body opposing government control of the domain, says ICANN is unlikely to play along.

"We have been told that a redelegation is unlikely," says Namespace head Mike Silber. "We presume the government will be told to come back and talk to us."

Silber is attending a regular ICANN meeting currently underway in Bucharest, Romania, where the issue of .za has come up for discussion. He says a government delegation at the meeting would be highly unlikely to succeed if it called for ICANN to assign responsibility for .za to the government without the consent of the current administrator or the broader local Internet community.

The body has a stated policy that a change in control for any country domain requires agreement between the current administrator such as Mike Lawrie in the case of SA, the government and a representative number of Internet users in the country.

Should ICANN refuse to accept the planned government domain name authority, control of .za will remain with Lawrie. However, Lawrie believes the ECT Bill would make it illegal for him to continue his administrative work, effectively leaving the suffix in limbo.

Lawrie has moved the primary zone file of the .za system offshore, and says it will remain unchanged but stable should he no longer be able to fulfil his duties.

The ICANN meeting ends tomorrow.