Domainz Limited was the original

.nz .nz is the Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five ...

registry operator and is now an

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

accredited

domain name registrar A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar ...

and web host.

IANA The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Interne ...

delegated the .nz namespace to John Houlker on 19 January 1987, and the

University of Waikato The University of Waikato ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato), is a Public university, public research university in Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton, New Zealand established in 1964. An additional campus is located in Tauranga. The university perfo ...

issued .nz domain names and maintained the .nz registry during the early part of Internet availability in New Zealand. During 1996, as Internet use was flourishing in New Zealand, and operation of the .nz registry was becoming burdensome on the University of Waikato, John Houlker, IANA and The Internet Society of New Zealand (Isocnz) agreed to a redelegation of the .nz name to Isocnz. The University of Waikato was contracted to continue hosting the .nz namespace until Isocnz was in a position to assume full responsibility for the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...

(DNS). Isocnz established a subsidiary company, “The New Zealand Internet Registry Ltd”, trading as Domainz, to run the .nz registry, on 15 April 1997. Domainz commenced allocating domain names, to both companies and individuals, evolving what was known as the Domainz Registration System (DRS). Concern over a new online registry system, which was suffering a welter of problems, and opposition to a lawsuit (against Alan Brown, the founder of

ORBS Open Relay Behavior-modification System (ORBS), created and run by Alan Brown in New Zealand, was one of the first DNS-based Blackhole Lists (DNSBL), a means by which an internet domain may publish a list of IP addresses, in a database which can ...

) both being championed by Domainz CEO Patrick O'Brien saw all available Isocnz council seats (and subsequently the Domainz board) filled by "rebel" members in elections in July 2000. The SRS was implemented and became live on 14 October 2002, with Domainz as the sole registrar, acting in a stabilising role, until the first competitive registrar connected to the shared registry on 7 December 2002. Domainz remained as the stabilising registrar until September 2003. In September 2003, Domainz was acquired by Australian-based registrar

Melbourne IT Webcentral, formerly known as Melbourne IT Group, is an Australian digital services provider. It is a publicly-traded company that was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange () in December 1999. It provides internet domain registration, ...

Limited. In October 2003 there were in excess of 40 registrars interacting with the .nz Shared Registry System.

References and sources

History from New Zealand Commerce Commission
(PDF)

External links

Internet New Zealand

Domainz Corporate Site
Domain name registrars Internet in New Zealand Web hosting {{WebManTools