Council Minutes 05/03/98

Minutes of the ISOCNZ Council Meeting held on 5 March 1998 Ian Gordon Room at Victoria University, Wellington, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

Minutes adopted at Council Meeting 14 May 1998

PRESENT:

Jim Higgins (Chair), Stephen Bell, Mark Davies, Liam Greenwood, Liz Dengate-Thrush, Mark Harris, Don Hollander (Morning Only), Colin Jackson, Frank March, Prashanta Mukherjee, Rodney Prescott, Mimi Recker, Jenny Shearer, Bruce Sim, John Vorstermans

APOLOGIES:

John Hine, Andy Linton, Neil James

IN ATTENDANCE

Gavin Adlam (discussion on submission on the Magaziner Green Paper only)
Patrick O’Brien (morning session only)

1. OBSERVERS

There were no observers present.

2. APOLOGIES

Moved (Chair): "that apologies be accepted."

Agreed.

3. MINUTES OF THE MEETING 3 DECEMBER1997

It was noted that a section of the minutes relating to the last part of the meeting was unrecorded due to the notes taken being inadvertently mislaid.

Moved (Chair): "that, subject to noting the omission of some discussion, the minutes of the meeting of 3 December 1997 be accepted as a true and accurate record."

Agreed.

4. COMMITTEE DISCUSSIONS

The Council divided into the four committeees (see reports, below)

5. REPORT ON DOMAINZ FROM PATRICK O'BRIEN

Patrick O’Brien presented a status report on Domainz covering the period from December 1997.

Major points

(i) Debt collection: This was a major cost to the company and ways were being sought to reduce these costs, eg through the use of credit cards

(ii) Registration services: 300 new names had been registered over the December to February period, and changes in policy have improved registration performance.

(iii) Accommodation: The new premises were occupied in December.

(iv) Other matters touched on included:

Consolidation of customers’ names and addresses
The two recent defamation cases against the company
The problem with similar names, eg finewines/finewine/fineswines

In discussion it was noted that:

Domainz is performing well by international comparison with other Registries.

Domainz performance would make the basis for an excellent 'good news' article.

Moved (Chair): "that Council thank Patrick and his team for the wonderful job they have done in turning the New Zealand DN registry from a disaster into a high performance business."

Agreed by acclamation.

6. TENDERING OF DNS SERVICES

This discussion relates back to promises made at the time ISOCNZ formally took over the responsibility for the DNS registration function from Waikato University that as soon as practicable tenders would be called for provision of the service.

It was noted that at that time it was not known what was to be tendered out, or how. Experience has shown that the billing database information and the DNS information have to be located together. Arbitary separation of functions increases exposure to risk which could lead to inadequate performance under the rules by which the responsibility for handling the delegation of the .nz domain was made.

Moved (Chair): 'that a sub-committee consisting of the chairs of committees and the Chairperson meet within the next week to create a plan to move forward with a strategy for public release within five weeks a statement on how ISOCNZ will proceed with resolving the issue of tendering services."