As the .iwi.nz moderator, I publically opposed the .kiwi.nz application. The main reason was that I believe it would force Iwi to register their current domain names in .kiwi. to protect Iwi on-line identity.
It is a common practice for unscrupulous people to register names that are similar to genuine names that may be spelt incorrectly or that at a quick glance will appear to be spelt correctly. These people are often called cyber squatters. They then offer the genuine owners the domain name for sale at inflated prices, sometimes up to a million times more than the original price. For Iwi in the past, names have been offered back at over 1000% the original price.
From a cyber-squatters perspective; if you were not fully paying attention you could easily type kiwi as opposed to iwi or see kahungunu.kiwi.nz as kahungunu.iwi.nz . Or worse still, trok.iwi.nz as tro.kiwi.nz .
There is a high risk for all Iwi that a cyber-squatter will register all the Iwi names possible using the .kiwi.nz address, as opposed to the moderated .iwi.nz address . These pages could then be diverted to pornography, gambling, illegal content or to a for sale page offering the domain name for sale.
It is further likely that Iwi will be forced to register their names with .kiwi.nz in order to protect their cultural and Indigenous Property Rights.
When .maori.nz was introduced one unscrupulous businessman bulk registered Iwi names and offered them for sale back to the Iwi. The only way a handful of us stopped him was by naming him in the media.
Finally the other issue is that the new .kiwi address is likely to be made available next year. If .kiwi.nz is approved, then we will have .iwi.nz, .iwi.kiw.nz, .iwi.kiwi thus creating more confusion.
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