The government and internet company Host City reached an out-of-court settlement on Monday in a dispute over the e-mail address, ‘[email protected]’.
This was after the Department of Communications said earlier in the day it would bring an urgent application to the Pretoria High Court, seeking to prevent Host City from using the e-mail address.
Department representative Robert Nkuna said the department wanted Host City owner Wayne Diamond to stop using the e-mail address because it was government property.
”The company has been receiving information meant for the department with the use of the e-mail,” he said. ”It can’t claim to render services on our behalf without our concern.”
On November 10, the department issued an advertisement inviting the public to send nominations for the board of the country’s domain name authority, but it failed to register the e-mail address.
Host City registered the address on November 14 and subsequently refused to either de-register it or transfer it to government.
Diamond reportedly said on Monday he would happily hand it over if government ”just asks nicely”.
Nkuna said that in terms of the agreement the company should not have access to mail or other data sent to the e-mail address. Any information obtained by the company through the use of the address must be made available to no one else but the department.
It was also agreed that the company should hand over to the department all contents of mail and data they had already received, he said. – Sapa