Cape Town | Thursday
A RULING by the New York Supreme Court allowing South Africa to use the Internet domain name southafrica.com sets a precedent “for other countries who want their name back,” Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said on Wednesday.
The court on Monday dismissed an application for an interdict from Seattle-based internet company Virtual Countries to prevent South Africa using the name.
Virtual Countries began using the name in 1995 but lodged the application last year after the government took the issue to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), based in Geneva.
Matsepe-Casaburri said the US court ruling “would set an important precedent for other countries who want their names back.”
“They were cautious because one cannot say (than an eventual victory at) WIPO is a given. But now that we have gone this route countries like Chile have said that they are very interested.
“We have been flooded with messages from countries congratulating us,” she said.
The minister said Virtual Companies had offered to sell the right to the name to South Africa for 10 million dollars, the but government believed it was “too expensive” and that all countries had the “first right to their own domain names.”
Andile Ngcaba, the director general of the communications department, said South Africa was in the process of setting up its own website titled southafrica.com to promote the country ahead of WIPO’s hearing the case.
It was important to attract trade and tourism to South Africa and the government could not afford to wait for the outcome of the ruling in Geneva, he said.
The government already has a website entitled southafrica.net, but Ngcaba said this was not sufficient as it was common knowledge that “dot.com” websites attract more hits. – AFP
ZA *NOW:
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