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Over in Oz, their domain name regulator has nixed the registration of more than 1,000 domain names after deciding that they weren't fairly registered in the first place.

And here in NZ, the same thing has happened.

Now we know that domain name speculation was once rife, as various individuals and organisations sought to make money by buying up names they figured could be valuable to others. Indeed, go back a few years and it was not uncommon to see hundreds of generic or possibly useful names being bought up and sat on by such speculators.

In recent times however, the gloss has worn off the speculation business and whereas we used to hear about domains changing hands for millions of dollars, these days such things are almost unheard of.

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What's more, legal precedents based on trademark law and (in the case of Maori TV) special privileged legislation has made the whole idea of speculating with commercial names far from worthwhile.

But what about those generics?

Well, the fact that domain names aren't free (any more) and that, even if you manage to sell one, returns are fairly slim, means that high-volume speculators are now something of a rarity.

But what if you're a registrar as well as a speculator?

After all, registrars have the benefit of having direct access to the registration database and can obviously buy domains at a lower cost than the average (wo)man in the street.

It's for this reason that speculation by registrars has been specifically outlawed by the Domain Name Commissioner.

But a local ISP, GoKiwi is arguing that the DNC has gone too far when she cancelled some 400 names it had registered.

GoKiwi says it legitimately registered the domains on behalf of customers, using the services of registrar Domain Name Management Services Ltd (DNMSL), an associated company and that the cancellation of the registrations has resulted in problems for some of its clients.

Indeed, the perspectives of GoKiwi and DNMSL have been voiced by way of statements posted to the DNMSL website.

I guess the key issue here is the link between GoKiwi Internet and DNMSL -- are the two organisations in bed with each other so as to simply allow DNMSL to engage in speculation, or are the domains in question being legitimately held on behalf of GoKiwi Internet customers?

To find out, I attempted to find details of DNMSL's company registration -- but an online search of the companies' database turned up no match for the name.

But what about the domains in question -- are they actually being squatted/speculated on or is their use legitimate?

Well take a look at these and judge for yourself. Note that I've included links to the Google Cache version in case your nameserver no longer caches the domains.

• Sports.org.nz (cached)
• Midnight.c.nz (cached)

The status of rebecca.co.nz however, is somewhat less clear-cut, if you check out the Google Cache and a screen capture I made last week.

What a messy situation this seems to be.

Are Go Kiwi Internet and DNMS one and the same organisation? If so, the DNC would be quite within her rights to nix the names which have been acquired solely for the purpose of speculation.

However, if there is a good degree of separation between the two entities then a worrying precedent would seem to have been established -- one that effectively says "speculation is now disallowed and anyone buying a domain name as part of a future plan and not using it immediately runs the risk of losing it by an arbitrary ruling of the DNC".

In fact there *is* a connection between GKI and DNMS, but is that connection sufficient to qualify as simply being a mechanism to circumvent the DNC's rules?

Obviously the DNC thinks so.

Are the DNC's actions justified in this case?

How many degrees of separation should be required to avoid registrars from setting up a separate company or entity for speculation -- and do we actually care if they do so?

Or should we simply outlaw any form of speculation by requiring that all domain names actually be connected to working and non-trivial websites within x months of their registration?

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