InternetNZ says it will only suspend a .nz under extreme circumstances. Image / 123rf
The non-profit that manages the .nz domain is the subject of a hostile takeover, of sorts.
InternetNZ’s membership - which an insider says has been “stable for years” - has suddenly exploded from 280 at the beginning of February to 2110 as of last Wednesday.
The rise has been on the back of a Free Speech Union (FSU) bid to have a say on InternetNZ’s new constitution - a draft of which was circulated late last week. Members will vote on potential changes at a special general meeting later this month.
The FSU said earlier that a review of InternetNZ’s constitution, aimed at addressing systematic racism, could undermine free speech and set the non-profit group as “internet judge and jury” in free speech controversies.
One of its supporters, retired District Court judge David Harvey also saw the review leading to a constitution requiring a third of InternetNZ’s board to be Māori, a rise in directly appointed members, and new code-of-conduct rules he saw undermining free expression.
He raised concerns about a nominating committee vetting members and a central tenant of the review - that InternetNZ centre Te Tiriti o Waitangi [the Treaty of Waitangi] in all its work.
He saw a “co-governance” set-up in the works.
The union has encouraged its supporters to join InternetNZ to have a say in which of several possible new clauses are included in the new constitution.
The draft includes several variations on how many board members are elected versus appointed, plus a possible new paragraph making it explicit that InternetNZ would only take down a page under extreme circumstances.
It’s not clear how many of InternetNZ’s new members are from the FSU camp, and how many came onboard to counter its attempted takeover.
FSU chief executive Jonathan Ayling told the Herald that his lobby group had signed up about 500 people as InternetNZ members on their behalf. He did not have a figure for how many of his supporters had joined InternetNZ directly (for $21) via its website.
His impression was “it’s at least the same again”.
InternetNZ president Stephen Judd told the Herald that the draft constitution, and supporting documents, had been made available to all-comers, including recent sign-ups. Even members of the general public were welcome to weigh in with feedback.
But as per the organisation’s longstanding rules, only those who had been financial members for three months could vote at the special meeting.
The three-month rule also applied to those who wanted to stand for InternetNZ’s board (elections are due mid-year), or vote for candidates at its annual meeting.
The special meeting to finalise the constitution would be held by the end of this month, Judd said.
There was no rush to vote before FSU members were eligible, Judd said. InternetNZ’s longstanding timeline had been to hold the special meeting in “early 2025″, Judd said.
“We don’t have any issue with the three-month rule,” Ayling said. “We’re patient.”
His group was willing to wait until the annual meeting, which is usually held in July, to push for change.
In the event, as a draft constitution was circulated on Friday, Harvey indicated to the Herald that he was happily surprised that many of his concerns had not come to pass (more on his reaction below).
But his conclusion that the draft was vague in defining how InternetNZ would become a Te Tiriti o Waitangi-centric organisation could cause a fresh set of issues for the non-profit’s leadership.
Judd said the constitution update was, in part, to meet new legal requirements under the Incorporated Societies Act 2022.
But the broader process stems from an independent review of InternetNZ, released in November 2022 - which found “systematic racism” - which it saw as responsible for it reacting too slowly to a video that encouraged the slaughter of Māori.
The eight-minute clip had been placed on YouTube and remained online for nearly 24 hours after InternetNZ and other authorities had been alerted.
Two wāhine Māori - Amber Craig and Hiria Te Rangi - resigned from the InternetNZ council in protest at how the organisation handled online harm towards Māori. Te Rangi told BusinessDesk it was a Pākehā “old boys’ club”.
While take-downs are typically handled by Netsafe, the police or Internal Affairs or another Government agency approaching the company hosting objectionable material, concerns raised to InternetNZ’s council had been met by a “rude” and “abrupt” response. There had been a “brush-off” by an organisation lacking in diversity.
The review saw InternetNZ adopt the aim of “becoming a Te Tiriti o Waitangi-centric organisation”.
The proposed new constitution calls for a board of up to 11 members.
“At least two board members shall have expertise in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, te ao Māori, and/or Māori governance,” the draft says.
“The society shall endeavour to have at least three Māori board members at all times. At least one appointed board member must be Māori.”
The current constitution uses the term “council”. Judd said it was interchangeable with “board”, with the president and vice-president roles under the old constitution becoming the chair and vice chair - or co-chair - under the new proposal.
The society does not consider the use of domain names in its administration of the .nz Domain Name Space, except for moderated second level domains such as .govt.nz; where required by law; or to protect the integrity of the .nz Domain Name Space against domain name space abuse.
“Unfortunately, the proposed changes have been misrepresented by some groups including the Free Speech Union, creating confusion about the purpose of the constitutional review,” Judd said.
“The constitutional review is about organisational governance and won’t change how domain names are managed or give InternetNZ any expanded powers over domain names.
“We maintain a secure and trusted .nz top level domain by using established and transparent processes. One of the reasons .nz domain names are so widely trusted today is that we follow a strict set of rules for domain management.
“We can only remove a domain in very limited circumstances: when ordered by a court; when registration details are incomplete or fraudulent; or during extraordinary emergencies like the aftermath of a mass shooting. Such actions are extremely rare.”
The changes were triggered, in part, by the racism review. But the InternetNZ constitution also had to be refreshed to address legal requirements of an update to the Incorporated Societies Act 2022, which comes into force in April 2026.
Judd noted that a subsidiary of InternetNZ - the Domain Name Commission (DNC), which has a separate constitution - enforces .nz rules.
In the aftermath of the March 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, the DNC introduced what it called “emergency tools” including suspending a domain and site-locking. The latter effectively blocked certain sites carrying the shooter’s manifesto (ruled objectionable material by the Chief Censor) by making their addresses undiscoverable.
The InternetNZ chief executive at the time, Jordan Carter, said the new power to suspend would only be used in extreme circumstances such as a terrorist or cyber security attack or force majeure event and only apply “to cases where the use of the .nz domain space is causing, or may cause, irreparable harm to any person or the operation of the .nz domain space”.
Carter supported efforts to create a new online content regulator, but an Internal Affairs review of that option meandered from 2021 to 2024, with no substantial push from either major party, before being quietly sidelined.
Ordinarily, using the domain name system [DNS] that InternetNZ administers for censorship was impractical, Judd said.
An offender could still reach a New Zealand audience through a website address that they bought from an overseas provider - just as in the world of phones and phone companies they could get another number if their current one was blocked.
InternetNZ and the DNC’s role in restricting domain names was typically more procedural. For example, only government entities can register a .govt.nz address.
Judd saw the limitations of InternetNZ’s role in policing content as being implicit. Regardless, a proposed paragraph for the new constitution makes it explicit. It reads:
“The society does not consider the use of domain names in its administration of the .nz Domain Name Space, except for moderated second level domains such as .govt.nz; where required by law; or to protect the integrity of the .nz Domain Name Space against domain name space abuse.”
The whiff of incursion is moderated by the fact that the highest profile supporters of the FSU’s campaign are known quantities to InternetNZ.
Political blogger and pollster David Farrar is an InternetNZ insider; a current InternetNZ fellow who was elected to the non-profit’s council in 1998 and served as its vice-president between 2003 and 2007.
And Harvey - a cyber specialist during his time on the bench who consulted to the Law Commission on the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 - is a fixture on the internet governance scene. More recently he’s been in the media as a supporter of Act leader David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill.
After all the build-up, there were few fireworks after the draft constitution was circulated late on Friday.
The Herald asked Ayling, Farrar, and Harvey for comment on the draft constitution.
“The constitution is far closer to a reasonable document than what was proposed before. Many of the areas I found to be objectionable have been resolved,” Harvey said.
Is it a red flag, of sorts, for the reform camp if the retired judge is too happy? (Though it should be noted that Judd and Craig accused him of over-egging the “threats” of the new constitution in the run-up.)
“By and large the proposals regarding board composition look all right.
“The objection I had to a vetting process for nominees for board elected positions [by a nominations committee] has vanished.”
Harvey added: “The document fails to define what the concept of ‘Te Tiriti-centric” or ‘Treaty-centric’ means”.
The free speech lobbyist said before the draft constitution (which emerged after the 2022 report that included a number of views) that proposed changes would mean “at least one third of the board must be Māori”.
In the event, the draft constitution, which has a board of no less than nine and no more than 11 members, requires at least one Māori member, with a goal of three.
“The society shall endeavour to have at least three Māori board members at all times. At least one appointed board member must be Māori. (The current constitution has no minimum requirement for Māori directors.)
A skills requirement provision says, “At least two board members shall have expertise in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, te ao Māori, and/or Māori governance.”
And while in his preview, Harvey said, “InternetNZ [is] to be effectively co-governed with two co-chairs – one of whom must be Māori,” the draft constitution includes that as one of three options (also saying that it is the “preferred option”).
Alternatively, the board could be led by a single chair, elected by members, and a deputy chair appointed by the board.
Or there could be a single chair and deputy chair who are both directly appointed by the board after each annual meeting.
And where Harvey saw “The number of elected board members will drop from nine to five, and appointments increased from two to four so almost half the board will be appointed.”
The draft has various scenarios, but for a nine or 11-person board, none have more than three direct appointments.
“I am prepared to accept that there should be a proportion of appointed members who bring expertise to the board,” Harvey said.
He did still have issues over the new Good Conduct provisions, however. He wanted a clause about not bringing InternetNZ into disrepute to get the qualifier “Provided nothing in this clause should be interpreted as an abrogation of a member’s right to freedom of expression”. He also wanted members to have a right of reply before being suspended for breaching the good conduct rules.
Craig could not be immediately reached for comment; Te Rangi - now based in Australia - was in the throes of preparing for Cyclone Alfred.
Before the draft was released, Craig posted on LinkedIn that “no one is trying to censor the internet”. The draft constitution had been put together by a group consisting of “not just Māori but other communities that weren’t just old white guys”.
She said: “Judge Harvey and Free Speech Union are trying to scaremonger everyone that the constitutional reform will censor the Internet ... No one is trying to censor the internet. We’re working to be more inclusive.”
And while she had quit InternetNZ in 2021, Harvey’s campaign had brought her back into the fold. “I have just signed up to be a member again, because I will not sit on the sidelines and have these groups take over these spaces,” she said.
She was encouraging her followers to sign up, too.
InternetNZ is the non-profit that administers most websites with NZ addresses. It also runs the Domain Name Commission, which keeps a public database of who’s registered a .nz address and referees disputes.
Its mission statement: “We manage .nz domains on behalf of all New Zealanders and work to build a better online Aotearoa.”
Its current causes include closing digital equity, or closing the gap between the broadband haves and have nots.
InternetNZ has been pro net neutrality and opposed the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal (ultimately killed by United States President Donald Trump during his first term) on the grounds that gave US companies a too heavy-handed tool to target content they considered violated their intellectual property rights.
And it both supported then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Christchurch Call summit to pressure social media firms on misinformation and hate speech content but opposed an internet filter, which was also part of the Government’s response to the mosque terror attacks.
It has total income of $15.2 million in 2024 (up from $14.0m in 2023) most of which came from wholesaling local domains (website and email addresses). When you register an NZ internet address, then pay your annual fees to keep it current, InternetNZ gets a cut.
Expenditure was $13.9m, including $1.2m in community organisation grants. The cash surplus was $1.4m. There was $2.4m in cash and equivalents.
In a note with its 2024 accounts, InternetNZ says, “We have continued to see an increase in Māori partnerships and projects supported with a 10% increase from 2022-2023. This year we are pleased to have distributed 35.97% or $431,645 to Māori individuals or organisations, up from around 25.02% the previous year.”
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
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