The government of Niue is demanding a “re-delegation” of the domain .NU from ICANN. Niue is a small island in the South Pacific that is part of New Zealand but is self-governed. It was reported that in the 1990s when there were no single set of rules for domain delegation, an entrepreneurial American editor, Bill Semich, gained control over .NU. He managed to convince the Niue people, who knew nothing about the internet that the ccTLD was like the international telephone code to establish a connection but had no value itself. So, Niue authorities signed a memorandum of understanding with Semich giving him the rights to manage the domain.
The domain became very popular soon particularly in northern European countries where ‘nu’ translates as ‘now.’ Today the Internet Foundation of Sweden is the technical manager of .NU, and Niue has not received a penny in all the years that the domain has existed, while according to expert estimates, it should have earned over $100 million.
Niue’s attempts to solve the problem in court have failed so far: the document confirming Bill Semich’s rights to manage the domain was recognized as having legal force. Now Niue will try to resolve the issue through ICANN. According to Business Insider, the island’s delegation is comprised of university law professors from several Scandinavian countries and led by Swedish domain industry expert Pär Brumark. All of them are representing Niue’s interests for free, for justice’ sake. According to Brumark, the delegation is confident it will succeed because it will present the most detailed analysis of problems with ICANN rules and their implementation throughout history.
“We are putting them in a situation where it would be extremely difficult to rule against Niue, because that would set a precedent that would complicate their policy system too much. It would be a stain on ICANN,” Pär Brumark said.
