Cape Town - The New York Supreme Court dismissed an application by Virtual Countries, a US Internet company, to stop the South African government's plan to use the Internet domain name, http://www.SouthAfrica.com, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, the minister of communications, said yesterday.
Virtual Countries bought access to the South African domain name in 1995. In November last year it brought an action against South Africa after the government said it wanted SouthAfrica.com as part of an international strategic marketing plan.
Matsepe-Casaburri said Virtual Countries wanted South Africa to pay $8 million to $10 million for the domain name. The government believed that aside from the fact that it was a lot of money to pay, the domain name was part of the country's cultural heritage, to be used for marketing the country.
She said the court case had aroused interest among many other countries, particularly developing countries, which were unable to secure their own domain names because they had been secured by parties outside of their countries and because they did not have the funds to pay third parties for their own domain names.
The South African government now intended to apply to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) for full rights to SouthAfrica.com - the government already owns SouthAfrica.net.
Matsepe-Casaburri hoped the matter would be considered by the WIPO by the end of June.
She hoped the outcome of the WIPO process would have an effect on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in particular the uniform domain name resolution policy.
She said South Africa believed that countries should have first right to their own domain names.
The fact that poor countries were behind in the development of their own Internet domains should not be viewed as an opportunity for the abuse of their right to national resources.