Domain Name Commission (DNC) and the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) have signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) that would provide a secure .NZ domain for registration. As per the Mou, the two organizations will allow sharing of information with respect to domain name registrations, emails and restricted online publications for the domain.
According to InternetNZ (parent association of the DNC), this move will allow them to secure the .NZ domain and safeguard the domain for enterprise and individual usage. By securing the domain, they believe that the registrations for the same will grow as users from different communities start trusting the domain.
DNC believes that New Zealand as a country has witnessed a boom in many industries and local as well as international enterprises would want to leverage the domain to create their own identity.
According to DIA, DNC’s knowledge and expertise about the .NZ domain would be of great help to the DIA while protecting New Zealanders from myriad cyber attacks and viruses. Jolene Armadoros, DIA’s Digital Safety Director believes that working closely with DNC will allow them to identify, distinguish and eradicate attacks to keep the .NZ domain ecosystem as secure as a possible.
The two associations jointly say that the MoU will result in noteworthy accomplishments through the next couple of years to foster trust, compliance and good practices in the industry. Speaking in detail about the MoU, DNC claim that the agreement seeks to co-operate on terms like –
- Referring complaints to the other agency wherever necessary,
- Use of specialized skill from every office,
- Proactively building capacity between each agency,
- Sharing best practices and worldwide benchmarking practices,
- Trading insights related to .NZ domain name enquiries and messaging compliance issues, and
- Communicating and sharing data and know-how to empower effective monitoring of overall system problems like (malware, phishing attacks, virus attacks etc.)
In closing, the internet authorities said that they are expecting a decent response from New Zealanders. It will be interesting to see how enterprises and individuals react to the security additions made to the .NZ domain, just as those made to .BR and .RADIO TLDs.