As of February 2011 there are 372,062 domains in .co.nz, the next closest is 24,373 in .org.nz, and following that 23,935 in .net.nz. So, what meaningful purpose do these three second level domains (2LDs) serve? I argue that they serve no useful purpose.
The original intent was for commercial domains to be registered under .co.nz, network infrastructure under .net.nz, and other organisations under .org.nz, but clearly this scheme isn’t followed and has proved to be impractical and unecessary. .co.nz has clearly become the default 2LD for almost all domains regardless of the type of registrant (for example my own domain punk.co.nz, clearly I’m not a commercial website). This makes sense, because most people only want to distinguish themselves, their website, or their organisation as being from New Zealand. Distinguishing the type of their organisation offers little value, but makes the domain more difficult to remember. And few people want to register a domain under .org.nz for example and risk someone else registering the same domain under the more popular .co.nz, probably leading to confusion for their customers. In fact .net.nz now gets mostly used by registrants who are not distinguishing network infrastructure, but who want to use the word network in their name (e.g. a website of an artists network).
Many other countries, much larger ones than New Zealand, do perfectly fine without 2LDs, for example Canada, France, and Germany. So scale is not the issue.
Note there are some obvious 2LDs that might make sense, but these are where moderation is used, such as .govt.nz and .school.nz, and these domains currently have very few domains under them.
So what do I think we should do? Well I think we should phase out .co.nz and open up registration under .nz. Second level domains would still be retained for distinguishing government organisations and similar and these would be moderated. .net.nz and .org.nz would be retained with a lower fee than .nz. Similarly .geek.nz, .gen.nz, and the like would be retained with similar lower fees, and a few extra 2LDs would be added for personal uses and reserved for any likely industries that might benefit from a moderated 2LD in future.
To get there I would suggest one of two courses of action.
Option 1: Open up .nz and permit registrations of new domains at the second level. Initially all registrants holding domains under .co.nz would be offered the option to shift their domain to .nz. If they elect to do this then their .co.nz domain will be retained for 12 months with the same configuration as their .nz equivelent. .co.nz would remain open to new registrations, but overtime most people will elect to use a .nz and the number of domains under .co.nz will reduce, probably in line with .net.nz and .org.nz.
Option 2: Make .nz a mirror of .co.nz, except where the domain under .co.nz conflicts with one of the existing, new, or reserved 2LDs. In that case the registrant will be given the option to pick a new domain. .co.nz could then be closed to new registrations, and possibly eventually withdrawn.
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I agree — I’ve always seen it as prone to confusion to allow an organisation to have .org.nz and .co.nz and .net.nz and …
If we allow mycompany.co.nz and completely unrelated mycompany.net.nz (and there’s no guarantee that the latter is more network-related), then we have potential confusion where individuals have to remember whether it’s .net or .co and may be mislead if they visit the wrong one.
If we disallow it (including, by companies using legal or economic pressure to discourage others from registering similar names) then we have pointless redundancy.
If a domains are unmoderated, then it is best to have a strong distinction between them so that organisations can choose the most appropriate one, and individuals can remember the right one. A two-level system with a more expensive generic domain sounds sensible.
There is definite value in moderated domains, such as .govt.nz. (Though I recall that US political parties have sometimes been allowed to register in .gov, which seems a bit dodgy to me…)