SA fares badly in battle for southafrica.com
Publish date: 22 September 2004
Issue Number: 1048
Diary: Legalbrief eLaw
Category: Corruption
Deputy Minister of Communications Roy Padayachee told Parliament last week that, despite the considerable legal costs, its attempt to secure ownership of the Internet domain name www.southafrica.com had only been successful \'to some extent\'.
The department had been successful in ensuring that Virtual Countries, current holder of the domain, may no longer transfer the name to any other company or individual, reports the Cape Argus. In 1995, Virtual Countries had registered the domain from around $35, now the company was requesting between $5m and $10m from South Africa to buy the domain. Padayachee said the government was trying to negotiate a \'more realistic price\'. He added that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers would be visiting SA in December to transfer the domain www.southafrica.za to the state. Full Cape Argus report
