пархоменко.com

According to the zakon.kz information portal Kazakhstani government has decided to tighten some registration rules for the .KZ TLD namespace.

While trying to fill gaps in the law these rules include some intriguing statements:

6. При подаче заявки на регистрацию доменного имени, регистрант осуществляет следующие действия: 2) предоставляет сведения о функционирующих серверах DNS (минимум два) в сети Интернет, находящихся на территории Республики Казахстан в соответствии со стандартами Интернет RFC 1034, 1035, 1122, 1123 на момент подачи заявки Регистратору;

It means that an applicant should provide at least two working DNS servers located on the Kazakhstan territory. So, any DNS server for the .KZ zone should be hosted by a local provider. And there are only three major providers in Kazakhstan — Kazakhtelecom, partly private local carrier giant, Russia-owned Golden Telecom and Nursat which is rumored to be a subsidiary of Kazakhtelecom.

Next quote:

8. Регистрация доменного имени может быть приостановлена в следующих случаях: 2) WEB-сервера, имеющие доменные имена в зарегистрированном доменном имени, располагаются за пределами Республики Казахстан;

could be interpreted literally — every web-server that has a name in the .KZ TLD should be located in Kazakhstan too.

Kazakhstan is rich in minerals and now its goverment wants to be the sole governor of another “natural resource” - Kazakhstan’s TLD.

What suprises me most is the reaction at this event: no loud shouting, no international coverage, just a weak humming from the KZ’s internet establishment. They propose two reasons why it has been done.

“Hosters lobbying”. It is not a secret that hosting services in Kazakhstan are rather expensive. Not the infrastructure but the traffic. The market is narrow, the product is almost unique and it causes the hosting price. Site owners prefer flat rates in the US, Russia, anywhere instead of overpaying.

Players are all the same: Kazakhtelecom, Golden Telecom and small reselleres which provide services hosted at The Big Three. I doubt about Golden Telecom, but the national carrier could probably insist on such decision using all of its power. Perhaps, they want to cut some external traffic to pay for.

“To control”.Opposition is still an active force in Kazakhstan. They have got their newspapers shut down and use internet media widely to win the votes game facing future elections. Some sources like eurasia.org was unsuccefully blocked by the local providers but such blocks are easy passed by with anonymous proxy services.

There are navi.kz and some others wich bother goverment continually. New rules give the officials an ability to supress it. Just a little talk with provider and content would be filtered in a “suitable” way. This version sounds even more reasonable if you find out that the rules are approved by The National Security Committee.

But they have nothing to do with web sites registered in the .COM or .RU top level domains and hosted abroad. And all the noise becomes unneccessary in that case. It would be very stupid not to understand that.

So, these are the facts. You can decide which point you like better.