Mike Jensen
mikej@sangonet.org.za

A description of the nom.za domain

The nom.za domain was established with two objectives: to provide a
low-cost means of registering a non-commercial personal Internet address
for South Africans, and as an experiment or demonstration of co-operative
domain name  management. The domain is run by volunteers and became
operational in September 2000. It has since registered 142  subdomains,
with 13 direct A plus glue records, and 22 MX pointers.

While companies may assist individuals to register under the nom.za domain,
no registrations by corporate entities  are accepted, so the registration
of a nom.za domain name cannot interfere with or infringe on any assumed
rights  of a third party to trademarks, tradenames, company names,
copyright or any other intellectual property  right.

While most use of the domain is by individuals who register their given or
last names, because the domain is  run co-operatively and has no commercial
value, this is not policed and individuals are free to register whatever
 name they choose. The standard convention of Internet operational domains,
such as www, mail, pop, smtp etc are  reserved, and registrations are
rejected if they have obviously contrived names with illegal or negative
human rights  connotations (sexual, religious, violent, racial or political
etc). A maximum of three domains is allowed per  email address. In the
event that use of a nom.za domain name for does not occur for a period of
sixty (60) days or more, the registrant is expected to relenquish the
domain.

The nom.za sub-domains are provided/hosted at no charge, on a first come
first serve basis. But unlike other domains,  the nom.za domain registrants
do not own their domains - they are custodians of them. This is because it
would be unfair, for example, that the first 'Dube' to apply should be the
only one to have access to dube.nom.za.  So the registrant of a nom.za
domain is expected to allow others to register further sub-domains under
the domain and generally operate the domain to the satisfaction of others
who have an interest in it. If this does not happen, the domain can be
re-assigned, normally through a majority decision of those who lay claim to
it.

As soon as 1000 domains have been registered, a general meeting of the
custodians will be called, wherever  the majority of them are located, to
assume further responsibility for deciding on the future policies and
administrative structures for the nom.za domain, and to decide on venues
for its continued hosting.

Thus it is expected that the domain will ultimately continue to be run
co-operatively by the collective of those who have registered domains under
nom.za.

A web site (www.nom.za) has been set up to provide information on the
domain registration requirements, existing domains (whois) and to automate
the process, which checks in realtime that that the applicant has set up
Internet  servers for their chosen domain name.

The administrator for the nom.za domain is Mike Jensen (mikej@sn.apc.org)
and the technical contact is Faheem Fredricks (logrus@chaos.alt.za).