A hotly contested bill to encourage e-commerce and take control of the South African domain name passed its final hurdle on Tuesday and will become law as soon as President Thabo Mbeki signs it.
The Electronic Communication and Transactions Bill was adopted by the National Council of Provinces — equivalent to a senate — after the National Assembly passed it earlier in June.
”The bill enables us to have a secure environment for electronic communications and transactions, whether these be person-to-person, business-to-business, business-to-consumer or government-to-citizens,” Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri told legislators.
The bill also proposes to take over the administration of South African Internet domains, identified by the ”.za” suffix in addresses, without seeking approval from the international authority which administers the Internet roadmap.
Domain names — the ”.com” and ”.uk” type suffixes of addresses and Web sites — are the foundation of Internet navigation. They have been subject to fierce competition, with early users trying to claim addresses and domains which might become valuable.
The ”.za” domain name is administered under a mandate from the international Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) by local Internet pioneer Mike Lawrie.
Lawrie said he had recently he had moved the key domain-name file — a computer file of less than 200 lines of code — offshore to keep it safe from efforts to take it over.
He said management of the domain, which is key to the whole South African Internet network, could only be reassigned if government, the current administrator and the domestic Internet community agree.
An informal online poll recently showed overwhelming opposition to the government’s plan to take over the administration of the domain through a non-profit company.
Matsepe-Casaburri told legislators the government wanted to ensure equitable access to the Internet for all, including black South Africans largely excluded from the economy until the end of white minority rule in 1994.
”There is no intention whatsoever to control the use of mechanisms such as the Internet, which are essential for electronic commerce and transactions,” she said.
A key provision of the bill will be to give full legal recognition to electronic documents and signatures. – Reuters