To: The Editor-in-Chief,
ITWebAfrica
We thank you for your recent article
(Re: 'The $185,000 dotafrica internet domain name 'misunderstanding'?' located at
We believe that it is also pertinent to respond to the comments made by Mr. Neil Duncan Dundas of UniForum SA trading as ZA Central Registry, who also happens to be a director of DNS (Pty) Ltd., African Registry Consortium (ARC) and is now the public face, fronting the .Africa new gTLD application that was submitted on behalf of the unregistered AfricaInOneSpace.
Not A Community TLD Application
One very important issue that needs to be immediately clarified is that the .Africa new gTLD application submitted by UniForum ZA Central Registry (Application ID: 1-1243-89583) is not a Community TLD application. The attempt that is being made to position or characterize the application as the official African Community application that is sanctioned by the African Union Commission and about '40' African countries is a very egregious and fraudulent misrepresentation.
Let DCA Trust be on one side as Ali Baba and let UniForum ZA Central Registry and its so-called partners represent the forty (40) thieves, and the outcome of this saga can be easily predicted.
One only needs to see the published parts of UniForum's application and their answers to
Question numbers 19 and 20 to verify that UniForum deliberately failed to acknowledge any Community in their official answers to ICANN.
The global Internet public should know this:
Question No. 19 an
unequivocal
"NO"
In their answer to Question No. 19 ("Is the application for a Community based TLD?"), they unequivocally stated "No".
Mission & Purpose of Proposed TLD
In describing the Mission and Purpose of their proposed gTLD (Question No. 18), UniForum have noted inter alia: "The ZACR and its partners in Africa, representing governments, ccTLD administrators, the technical and user communities, share a collective vision of establishing and running a successful, African-based registry operation for the benefit and pride of Africa. "
How could such a bold statement indicating a diverse community partnership be truly reconciled with their blank answer to Question 20(a)?
Answers to Q 20 (a) to (f) - Blank
(a) Provide the name and full description of the community that the applicant is committing serve; UniForum intentionally left it blank, thus indicating that they have not actually named any community that they claim to be committing to serve in their new gTLD application for .Africa.
Interestingly, UniForum also left their answers to the following important Community TLD-related questions blank:
The question No. 20 (b) - (e) which immediately follows:
(b) Explain the applicant's relationship to the community identified in 20(a).
(c) Provide a description of the community-based purpose of the applied-for gTLD.
(d) Explain the relationship between the applied for gTLD string and the community identified in 20(a).
(e) Provide a complete description of the applicant's intended registration policies in support of the community-based purpose of the applied-for gTLD. Policies and enforcement mechanisms are expected to constitute a coherent set.
(f) Attach any written endorsements for the application from established institutions representative of the community identified in 20(a). An applicant may submit written endorsements by multiple institutions, if relevant to the community.
