SA Internet administrator defies government and moves all .ZA names offshore

14 Jun 2002

Mike Lawrie, the current administrator of all Internet names ending in .ZA, has moved all registration details of Internet names outside the country. This was to ensure stability of the Internet and to "buy time for dialogue" while government attempts to gain greater control of SA's Internet through the pending Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Bill.

The new law is intended mainly to give legal status to Internet trades and contracts, but a section allows the state to take over Internet domain name administration.

Mike Lawrie has administered the registration of South African Internet names ending in .ZA for the last 11 years. During the last three years, he has initiated discussions to transfer the administration to a non-profit organisation, Namespace, elected by the Internet community of South Africa. Namespace says it is still formulating its official response, but its individual board members had no objections to the move.

Nkenke Kekana, MP and chair of the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, says that by making this move, Lawrie has entered into a battle he cannot win. "It's unheard of for one citizen to take on the whole Parliament of a country."

Legally, Mike Lawrie has the final say over any changes in the administration as the US-based ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) won't recognise a change in administration without Lawrie's consent.

Lawrie has seen near unanimous support from the broad Internet community for his move. "No doubt there will be some emotional reaction to this move, but technical stability is a far more important issue," he said in his announcement.

A poll of 35000 owners of .co.za names revealed very little support for the new system of domain name administration contained in the ECT bill passed by the national assembly.

By noon on Friday:

1.8% "strongly approved"

6.4% "mostly agreed"

25% "mostly opposed"

62% "totally opposed"

Namespace and the government are continuing discussions about the future of .za administration leading up to next Friday when the ECT Bill comes before the National Council of Provinces for discussion.

ISPA on the ECT Bill

The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) has said that they welcome sections of the government's Electronic Communications and Transactions Bill aimed at facilitating electronic transaction as it is critical for the development of Internet commerce in South Africa. They also welcome the adoption of a national e-strategy and look forward to supporting government in the implementation of this strategy. They do, however, question the inclusion of certain provisions, maintaining that the proposed register of companies providing cryptography services will not aid in the decoding of messages which threaten national security, as has been suggested, since cryptography providers do not have access to the keys required to decode encrypted messages. The pending Interception and Monitoring Bill provides instead for the issuing of a decryption direction to holders of encryption keys, a process which better addresses potential national security concerns, and makes a cryptography register under the ECT Bill redundant.

ISPA is also concerned that the sweeping powers given to the Minister to declare databases 'critical' may drive away international investment in the data warehousing sector. International investors will not want to host databases and information systems in South Africa if there is a risk of undue government interference in the operation of database systems. ISPA believes that this section of the Bill needs to include more checks and balances, to reassure international business partners.