4 Domains.nzco.net is running an operation called the Internet Domain Name Registry Ltd and they will sell you just about any domain you want -- so long as it ends in .nzco.net.

Unfortunately they didn't seem to do their legal homework before kicking off and this resulted in them potentially running foul of a number of well-known trademarks including Yahoo, Xtra, America's Cup, SkyTV, Team New Zealand, McDonalds and even Domainz.

Readers Say Further to your article this morning - Ken I have to agree that the NZ Government - Jamie Have Your Say

They claim that all of those names had been registered as third-levels under their .nzco.net -- but none of the trademark owners concerned contacted by Aardvark said that they knew nothing about it.

After being contacted by Aardvark, they moved quickly to tone-down their potentially risky use of other people's trademarks (such as aliasing the name www.domainz.nzco.net to their own site).

Unfortunately, if this is to become a viable service offering real value for the $49 a year charged, a huge amount of effort and money will need to be spent promoting the .nzco.net second-level domain to the extent that it becomes as well recognised as .co.nz.

One must also wonder why anyone would want to register a name that ends in .nzco.net when, in the vast majority of cases, you could register the same name as a .com. For instance, if Aardvark.co.nz was already taken I'd probably be more inclined to register aardvarknz.com for NZ$24 a year rather than pay twice as much for the somewhat more awkward aardvark.nzco.net.

Is this another case of a wallet being too far away from a brain or are these people smarter than one might think?

More Domain Stuff
While researching the above story yesterday I placed a call to Domainz, that multi-million dollar company which proudly claims to be a world-leader in its levels of service and efficiency.

You can imagine how surprised I was to find that all I got was an answerphone.

That's right -- not an interactive voice-menu system, not a queue -- just a plain old "leave us a message after the beep or send us an email -- BEEP" type of response. I left a message -- I'm still waiting for them to call me back.

One really has to ask -- what they hell are all those domain name registration fees being spent on if they can't even answer the phone? If an answerphone represents a world-leading level of service then what the hell do other registries do with their phones?

Invitations Galore
The bum is falling out of the dollar, the trade deficit is blowing out even further, and there's not a flicker of a new economy anywhere to be seen on the landscape.

So what do our politicians do?

They invite luminaries to talk to them about it.

Excuse me but the government already has some very clever people (and me) shouting the obvious solutions to these problems at them from the rooftops -- but it appears they're still lost for ideas.

The PM has reportedly sent out invitations to an elite group of carefully selected business-people who will all meet for tea and biscuits sometime next month. No -- I don't seem to have been included -- but that's not really a surprise is it? I suspect she probably doesn't really want to hear what I've got to say.

No doubt this little clique will discuss at length how to address the problems that the nation currently faces and who knows -- it might even be more than a posturing PR exercise. I'll restrain my cynicism for a while however and reserve judgement on this initiative until the results are in.

And while they were calculating the number of serviettes and plastic forks required for the next few months, IT Minister Paul Swain has issued an invitation of his own to Bill Gates -- inviting him to visit NZ whenever he can.

I'm hoping to meet with Mr Swain sometime next month and he seems genuinely open to discussing the issues which need to be addressed in order to promote knowledge-based industries in this country so again -- I'll reserve judgement.

However -- it must be said that ultimately -- talk is cheap. The government already knows of one thing it can do to really regain at least some of the lost confidence of new-economy industries and manufacturers: honour the pre-election promise to fix up the R&D penalty tax.

If they can demonstrate that there is more than rhetoric behind their words then I think they'll be very pleasantly surprised at the effect this might have in reducing the almost open hostility that presently exists between the very people this country needs and the government that is driving them away.

As always, your feedback is welcomed.