Banks' control bid short of supporters

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

The big banks represented by the Bankers Association have failed in their bid to create and control access to a proposed .bank.nz internet domain name.

In an electronic vote held by the Internet Society (ISOCNZ), 391 valid votes were received, of which 256 - 65.47 per cent of the total - were in favour of the proposal and 135 were against.

Under ISOCNZ rules, the Bankers Association required at least 70 per cent support for its proposal to progress to a formal submission stage.

According to ISOCNZ voting officer Steven Heath, the association - or anyone else - will have to wait at least a year before any application to create a .bank domain name would be considered.

The poll, which was open to any owner of a .nz e-mail address, was conducted by e-mail through the electronic voting website at www.election.com.

Polling closed on March 25 but Mr Heath said the result was delayed as the validity of e-mail votes had to be checked individually.

Fifty-three invalid votes were received mostly via e-mail and most of these were rejected because voters had not included an acceptable physical address.

Mr Heath said the Internet Society had learned lessons it would apply to future electronic votes.

"It's been a good learning process and a real test with a real applicant.

"Once the website is up and running it is by far the easiest system to administer even though we had a couple of hiccups in the first two or three days. The e-mail system was easier to set up but each vote had to be checked."

Mr Heath said he doubted the result would be challenged as it had been agreed unanimously by scrutineers from the Bankers Association and the Internet Society.

The society has not received any applications for other second-level domain names but Mr Heath said an application to create a .maori.nz domain had been under discussion for several months.

Grant Kerr, acting executive director of the NZBA, could not be reached for comment last night.