NZ Govt Dot Com Purchase Crazy

ACT Finance Spokesman Rodney Hide today said that the Clark Government's purchase of `NewZealand.com' for $US 500,000 was crazy.

"Tourism Minister Mark Burton admitted in parliament today, in response to my questions, that `New Zealand Way Ltd' - owned by the Tourism Board, TradeNZ and Industry New Zealand - blew a million bucks of taxpayer's money buying the domain name.

"That's the sort of dopiness that should have died out with the dot com crash. Only a government spending other people's money could make a purchase that dopey.

"The Domain Name is no longer important. Names can be branded. Look at Amazon.Com.

"The Minister justifies the purchase by talking about the dopiness of other governments. But the United States Government doesn't own USA.com.

The important thing is to have a good site, whatever the domain name - and have it come up high on a Google search for New Zealand. For $US 5,000 a month you can ensure any URL comes up first on a Google search.

"There were other options: NZ.com, gonewzealand.com, newzealand.co.nz or a host of other domain names, used and unused. A suitable domain name could have been bought or obtained for so much less.

"The million dollar purchase comes hard on the heels of the Clark Government taking Seattle-based Virtual Countries to the World Intellectual Property Organisation arguing that a private company couldn't own NewZealand.com. This from a government that trumpets the importance of intellectual property rights!

"WIPO dismissed the Clark government's case and found the New Zealand government guilty of an attempt to reverse hijack the domain name.

"How taxpayers are supposed to get value for money on this purchase beats me," Mr Hide said.

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