Wayne Diamond, owner of Internet company HostCity, today confirmed that he is in the process of transferring ownership of the domain to the government after the department asked the Pretoria High Court to intervene.

The parties came to a settlement that will see Diamond voluntarily transfer ownership.

Diamond would not be drawn on details of the deal.

“I am in the process of handing it to them,” he says. “We came to an agreement. I'd like the whole thing to be put aside now.”

The department initially only asked for control over e-mail sent to the domain, but later amended its request to taking ownership of the domain itself. Although official records have not yet been updated, the detailed site Diamond established at www.selection.co.za has been replaced by an “under construction” message.

Diamond first registered the domain on Thursday last week, four days after a government advertisement appeared using an e-mail address on the domain. An apparent oversight had left the domain unregistered, making it impossible to send e-mail to the address given.

Although the issue is now apparently settled to the satisfaction of the department, which could not immediately be reached for comment, many questions remain unanswered.

The domain was to be used as part of a campaign to solicit nominations for the board of directors of the .za domain name authority. The authority must be established in terms of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act to take control over SA's .za domain suffix.

However, the blunder of not registering selection.co.za before publishing the first invitation has been cited by many as proof that the government is not competent to deal with the complexity of domain name issues.

Questions are also being raised on the need for using selection.co.za to accept nominations. The .co.za address space is officially reserved for commercial use, while the government has its own .gov.za address space to be used for official matters. Government's control of selection.co.za will not only incur unnecessary costs, but would prevent a commercial entity with a legitimate claim to it (such as a company named “Selection”) from using the address.

The purpose of the address is to accept e-mailed nominations for the position of .za authority board members, but such nominations may be invalid. According to the invitation, the signature of the nominee must be included in any nomination and, although provided for under the ECT Act, digital signatures do not yet carry legal force in SA.

The handling of the selection of board members for the new authority may also not comply with the letter of the law. According to the ECT Act, nominations must be invited “through newspapers which have general circulation throughout the Republic, online news services, radio and by notice in the [Government] Gazette”. ITWeb has received no reports of online or radio invitations, potentially leaving the established domain body open to legal challenge at a later date.

However, the department has been praised for including two of its fiercest critics, current .za administrator Mike Lawrie and lawyer Ryk Meiring, onto the panel due to select the domain authority board members.

Nomination of board members closes on 29 November. The selection panel is to be officially introduced to the public on Thursday.

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