Te Kete o Karaitiana Taiuru (Blog)

Archived from September 10 21012

.kiwi.nz was launched at 10am this morning in an effort to gain at least 500 registrations within a month so that the domain could be a permanent domain. Within one hour 1000 registrations occurred. Already I have noticed a dozen cyber-squatted Māori names.

If you have not already done so, I would suggest you register your organisation, Marae and other taonga names asap. Remember you can use macron sin your addresses now.
As we have previously seen with other open new .nz address launches, there are those who register names that are significant or generic to Māori and then either redirect them to offensive web sites or offer them for resale at inflated prices, sometimes more than 1000 times the original price.

At this early stage it is also impossible to know if .kiwi.nz will become the preferred domain over .nz. There is also the issue that we will have .kiwi offered next year.

.kiwi.nz is very similar to .iwi.nz and will cause a lot of confusion if tribal names are registered and in this space. As the.iwi.nzmoderator, I recommend that you do not use .kiwi.nz for Iwi names. Just rely only on .iwi.nz which already has the mana of Iwi and the reputation for only having Iwi names. The disputes process below may be applicable to you if someone else registers your Iwi name.

If you do find yourself the victim of cybersquatting there are options available.

1. The legal manner is to visit the Domain Name Commissioners (DNC) web site and use their Dispute Processhttp://www.dc.org.nz
2. A social (and legal) manner that is often equally effective is to look at the registration details of the person/organisation who has registered the domain name by visiting www.dnz.org.nz and searching from the box on the left hand side. If the details appear to be false, such as a registration name being Mickey Mouse etc, you can complain to the DNC about false whois information.
3. If the information is legit, it is public information and in the past has been published online to show the cybersquatters for what they are. This typically leads to a quick resolution.

If you are still in doubt, use the contact form tocontact me.