Public Comments on the "Consultation Paper on the Review on Administration and Assignment of Internet Domain Names and Internet Protocol Addresses in Hong Kong"

Consultation Paper on the Review
On Administration and Assignment
Of Internet Domain Names and
Internet Protocol Addresses in Hong Kong
 

With reference to the captioned review, the Association has the following comments:-
 

1. We support the formation of a non-profit making and non-statutory corporation to administer and assume the overall responsibility for Internet domain name administration in Hong Kong rather than assigning the duties to the HKNIC under the Joint Universities Computer Centre (JUCC) at present.
2. In order to run on a self-financing basis and to ensure the proper and efficient operation of the corporation, a governing body comprising of representatives from the government, the academia and the business community should be formed to supervise and monitor the overall performances of the new establishment.
3. We also agree to the proposal of separating the registrar responsibilities in respect of the .gov.hk domain and the .edu.hk domain to the government and the JUCC respectively.
4. At present, each organization is only allowed to register for one domain name under .hk while multiple registrations are possible for the top level domains (gTLDs) worldwide. Therefore, we believe that with the more stringent requirements of registering .hk domain names in alignment with the true business nature of the registering organization, more than one domain name under .hk should be granted to serve the needs of such organization.
5. As for individual registration, we support the idea of allowing each individual resident of Hong Kong to register for one domain name in a new second-level domain category under .hk in order to facilitate the local population to migrate to the information age, by providing more enabling technologies and means to the public to use the internet in their daily communication.
6. With reference to the renewal fee now not being levied by the HKNIC, the Association opines that only a nominal fee should be charged if we are to encourage more enterprises and individuals to do their businesses on a web-based environment.