'Cyber-squatter' gets jump on Maori names

By ADAM GIFFORD

A former Tainui executive who has snapped up potentially valuable names on the new internet suffix .maori.nz denies he is exacting utu or revenge.

Craig Beecroft, sacked by Tainui but later acquitted in court of fraud allegations, said he had moved on from his dispute with his former employers.

He said he only thought of picking up iwi domain names on Thursday, the day the new Maori internet domain name became available.

The names could be registered on a first-come, first-served basis, and Mr Beecroft and business partner Mark Scherer registered 58 of them.

They include a batch of generic names such as television or sport, tpk.maori.nz and several tribal names, including Ngai Tahu, Ngapuhi, Ngati Porou, Tainui and Kingitanga.

Mr Beecroft is a former chief executive of Tainui Corporation, which was supposed to be Tainui's commercial arm.

He was sacked in 1998 and accused by then-tribal managers of trying to engineer the purchase of a Hamilton office tower for an inflated price.

But Mr Beecroft was acquitted in December 2000 after a three-month fraud trial in which those managers admitted he had in fact advised against the deal.

Hemi Rau, executive secretary of Tainui's Tekaumaarua executive, said the tribe was still trying to negotiate a dismissal settlement with Mr Beecroft, who filed an action with the Employment Court after his acquittal.

"People have to understand this is a new management trying to solve old problems," Mr Rau said.

He described relations with Mr Beecroft as cordial, and while Mr Rau was surprised the Tainui name had been snapped up, he said the iwi had no plans to buy it back.

The names are advertised for sale at the Netname Exchange.com site, along with other names Mr Beecroft and Mr Scherer have acquired over the past two years.

An email request for ngapuhi.maori.nz drew a response that the name was available for $1000 plus GST, including the $80 Domainz response-of-ownership fee.

Mr Beecroft said yesterday that he was considering handing the iwi-specific names to the tribes on payment of the transfer fee.

There was no thought of revenge in buying the Tainui names, he said.

"That was a long time ago now and it means nothing to me.

"I have rebuilt and moved on.

"I wish them the best."

Mr Beecroft said he had decided about a month ago to buy some generic .maori.nz names for resale, but it was a last-minute idea to pick up the iwi ones.

Te Runanga o Ngapuhi chief executive Alison Thom said her runanga had the web address it wanted - ngapuhi.iwi.nz - and it was not concerned about missing out on the .maori.nz variation.

However, Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu had tried to get ngaitahu.maori.nz but was beaten to it.

Maori Internet Society chairman Richard Orzecki said that while it was a disappointment the space had been "cybersquatted", that was an inherent risk in creating an unmoderated domain space.

The society decided not to seek a moderated space after discussions with Internet NZ and seeing the problems moderating the .iwi.nz space, which is available only to recognised iwi organisations.

More than 200 names were registered in the .maori.nz space in the first 24 hours of operation, with many people taking the opportunity to buy their family name.