Domainz chief quits three months early

By ADAM GIFFORD

Patrick O'Brien, the controversial chief executive of the company which administers the ".nz" internet country code register, has resigned three months before his contract is due to expire.

He will leave Domainz at the end of this month.

Mr O'Brien has been under attack from some internet service provider (ISP) owners and members of the Internet Society of New Zealand (Isocnz), Domainz's shareholder, over the way Domainz took over the registry function from Waikato University.

A defamation action taken by Mr O'Brien against Manawatu ISP owner Alan Brown over comments posted to an Isocnz mailing list caused splits in the society and was one of the factors behind the dumping of sitting members up for re-election at the last annual meeting.

Mr O'Brien said he was moving for career reasons rather than because of the attacks. "I've been in the job for four years. Decisions made at the Isocnz annual meeting about the future of the New Zealand domain name registry put the company into a holding pattern which could go on for some time."

The AGM voted to move to a shared registry system, which will supposedly allow greater competition among firms which offer domain name registration services.

A working party led by Professor John Hine from Victoria University is still working out how such a registry will work.

Mr O'Brien said the fact that criticism of Domainz became highly personalised did not mean the things the company was doing were wrong.

"If issues of personality are what other people think the issues are, the problem of personality has gone and now they can see what the issues really are."

He said that even though he was the named plaintiff, the defamation action was a company decision in response to statements Mr Brown made against the company "and under advice the company took that action."

Domainz board chairman Bob Gray said the company would continue to back the defamation action financially.

He said the agreement over Mr O'Brien's departure was confidential.

Mr O'Brien said there was no golden handshake. "I am on a contract for service, not an employment contract."

Mr Gray said Mr O'Brien had done an excellent job over the past four years moving the .nz register from a technical operation administered by universities to a viable business with annual earnings of nearly $700,000.

He said much of the criticism was undeserved.

"The board takes the position Patrick was implementing the policies of the shareholder, and in particular the board, and doing his job. The fact many people didn't like what he was doing was not a reflection on Patrick but on the policies he was required to implement," said Mr Gray.

The Domainz board did have concerns about the Domainz website, he said. The site was built under contract by Advantage subsidiary Glazier Systems.

It had a bug-ridden implementation, and had been widely criticised as being hard to navigate and adding cost and complexity to the work of website designers and ISPs.

"I am not comfortable with the design of the site. I don't fully understand the reason it is like that," said Mr Gray.

The Isocnz executive is planning a review of the site development project, and terms of reference are being prepared.