--- title: "Māori Domain Name Cybersquatting: The History, the Cases, and How to Protect Iwi and Māori Names Online" description: A timeline of Indigenous domain name developments that shows factual dates that will clarify some misconceptions of achievements. url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/2017/02/timeline-indigenous-domain-names/ markdown_url: https://www.taiuru.co.nz/2017/02/timeline-indigenous-domain-names.md type: post slug: timeline-indigenous-domain-names author: Karaitiana Taiuru published: 2017-02-07T19:59:29Z modified: 2026-10-10T05:17:49Z language: en-NZ taxonomies: category: - Domain Names - Māori Data Sovereignty and Governance word_count: 2758 tokens: 4293 --- # Māori Domain Name Cybersquatting: The History, the Cases, and How to Protect Iwi and Māori Names Online By Dr Karaitiana Taiuru. Consolidated on 10 October 2026 from seven posts first published between 27 July 2008 and 23 January 2017. Original publication dates are kept throughout. Key facts at a glance The problem: since .maori.nz launched on 5 September 2002, iwi and Māori domain names have repeatedly been cybersquatted: bought cheaply and offered back at inflated prices, redirected to offensive sites, or used to impersonate iwi. Scale: by July 2008 I personally knew of at least 34 cases in .maori.nz alone. The biggest case: at the launch of .maori.nz one business bulk-registered about 60 iwi names, plus many generic names, and offered them for sale at up to 100 times the original price. It released them after being publicly named. The protection: .iwi.nz is a moderated domain checked by a person, reserved for iwi, hapū and taurahere rōpū. It is the safest online home for iwi names. If it happens to you: do not buy the name back. Use an alternative, check the WHOIS, and use the .nz Dispute Resolution Scheme. Why it matters: a domain name is the digital equivalent of a pepeha, tā moko or whakapapa for Māori online. What is cybersquatting, and why does it matter for Māori? Cybersquatting is registering a domain name that rightly belongs to someone else, or that is valuable to a community, in order to sell it back at an inflated price, point it at distasteful content, or impersonate the rightful owner. Names typically bought for around $60 a year have been offered back to Māori for hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars. For Māori this is more than a commercial problem. In the early years of .nz domain names, Māori and iwi were marginalised and ignored, Māori names were held to ransom, and iwi were dictated to about how they could be represented online. A domain name is the digital equivalent of a pepeha, tā moko or whakapapa. Losing control of it is a loss of identity and mana online, and it exposes whānau to scams. Corporations, businesses and other Indigenous peoples face the same branding and identity threats online, and the problem is common to all cultures. The one difference is that iwi have an authentic, protected space of their own: .iwi.nz. Timeline: Māori domain names and cybersquatting Date Event Before 2001 Many generic .nz names are cybersquatted, and the .nz namespace does not meet the needs of a bicultural country. 2000 .iwi.nz eligibility criteria are made fairer and opened to all iwi. 5 September 2002 .maori.nz launches. Within minutes a business bulk-registers about 60 iwi names and offers them for sale. 2002 Te Whānau Ipurangi / New Zealand Māori Internet Society publicly exposes the business; the names are released at no cost. 2004 onwards Smaller cybersquatting cases follow, especially after Māori Television launches. 2006 maori.co.nz is registered by a company and offered for sale. July 2008 google.maori.nz is registered after Google launches its Māori-language interface, and listed for sale on Trade Me. December 2008 I am appointed leader of the .indigi Indigenous domain initiative. 11 September 2012 .kiwi.nz launches; a dozen cybersquatted Māori names appear on launch day. 2013 The New Zealand Māori Internet Society investigates and lodges formal complaints about several names. 2014 The .kiwi top-level domain launches, and from 30 September 2014 names can be registered directly under .nz. 2018 maori.co.nz is still offered for sale, 12 years after registration. The major cases 2002: Bulk registration of iwi names at the launch of .maori.nz From posts first published 27 July 2008, 31 August 2009, 1 March 2013 and 3 February 2018. Before 2001, many generic .nz names had already been cybersquatted, and the .nz namespace did not serve a bicultural country. That prompted Māori to apply for the creation of .maori.nz. A bilingual Domain Name System was also requested by Māori, but was largely ignored. Minutes after .maori.nz went live on 5 September 2002, one business bulk-registered about 60 iwi names, including all the tribal names, along with many generic names and Aotearoa.maori.nz. It offered them for sale, often at 100 times the original price. With few other options, the New Zealand Māori Internet Society took the matter to the media. Ross Himona, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara and I publicly named the business. It then offered every name back to its rightful owners at no cost. Naming and shaming works well in a small country with small businesses. Smaller cases followed, especially after the launch of Māori Television. I know of none that made a profit. July 2008: google.maori.nz First published 27 July 2008. In July 2008, the month Google released its Māori-language interface (Google Aotearoa), an individual registered google.maori.nz and tried, without success, to sell it on Trade Me. Google is a trademark, so anyone tempted to buy such a name should reconsider. The seller appeared to realise this, as he listed it with no reserve. Readers responding at the time called for such people to be exposed and the practice stopped. Corporate names and offensive registrations in .maori.nz First published 1 March 2013. Names of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo were also registered in .maori.nz. I emailed those companies, and they referred the matter to their legal departments. Two other .maori.nz registrations I would describe as racist. It still surprises me that people try to cybersquat or ransom names in .iwi.nz. If anything, these attempts make the moderated .iwi.nz domain more authentic and more valuable to iwi. In March 2013 I was interviewed by Radio Waatea about cybersquatters in .maori.nz. 2006–2018: maori.co.nz held to ransom First published 3 February 2018. In 2006, a sole-director company, NZ Country Matters Ltd, registered maori.co.nz, the premium Māori domain name of the time, and began offering it for sale. In 2018, 12 years later, it was still for sale. As at October 2026 the domain remains registered. A conservative estimate of the owner’s costs over 12 years is $60 a year for the domain plus $100 a year for web hosting and associated costs, before any time spent maintaining it. That is $1,920 the owner would want to recover from a $60 purchase. Yet the name has no real value and is not unique. With so many other domain options, social media platforms such as Facebook, the generic nature of the name, and the shape of the Māori economy, it would be hard to use as a brand. The owner still appeared to expect a profit, which in my view was unrealistic; they should have let it expire. 11 September 2012: .kiwi.nz launches with new Māori cybersquatting First published September 2012 and republished 11 November 2012. .kiwi.nz opened for registrations at 10am on 11 September 2012. It needed at least 500 registrations within a month to become a permanent domain, but around 1,000 names were registered within the first hour, and I had already seen a dozen cybersquatted Māori names, registered by a handful of individuals. In earlier open .nz launches, people registered significant or generic Māori names and then redirected them to offensive sites or offered them for resale at, in some cases, more than 1,000 times the original price. My advice at the time was to register your organisation’s, marae’s and other taonga names as soon as possible, including with macrons, which were by then available in .nz addresses. .kiwi.nz looks very like .iwi.nz and could confuse visitors if tribal names were registered there. As moderator of .iwi.nz, I recommended that iwi not use .kiwi.nz for iwi names and instead rely on .iwi.nz, which holds iwi mana and a reputation for genuine iwi names. The dispute process may apply if someone registers an iwi name in .kiwi.nz. At launch it was too early to know whether .kiwi.nz would become preferred over other .nz names, and a separate .kiwi top-level domain was due the following year (it launched in 2014). In 2013 the New Zealand Māori Internet Society began an investigation into cybersquatted names and lodged formal complaints about several of them. Why iwi should use .iwi.nz First published 23 January 2017. .iwi.nz is a moderated second-level domain reserved for iwi, hapū and taurahere rōpū. A real person checks the authenticity of every iwi name and declines names not registered by the iwi itself. When I wrote this in 2017, only two companies were authorised to register .iwi.nz names. Moderation protects iwi from: Individuals using an iwi name for non-iwi purposes. People buying an iwi name and offering to sell it back at an inflated price. An iwi name being directed to distasteful websites and other dubious schemes. It also ensures every iwi name has a kaitiaki and stays in the right hands. A .iwi.nz address is an assurance to visitors and whānau that the site is genuine. Registering only in .iwi.nz is vital for an iwi’s online identity and for the online safety of its members and whānau. The risks of iwi names outside .iwi.nz Offensive or fake destinations. Searches for a tribe have led to gambling sites, imitation sites selling fake jewellery and resources, and pornography. Resale. People register iwi names outside .iwi.nz and sell them for hundreds of dollars more than they paid. Cloned iwi websites. Genuine iwi websites have been duplicated, and the fake versions used to collect personal information and credit card details. Search rankings. A site outside .iwi.nz can outrank the genuine iwi site in Google. A web developer or search expert can improve the genuine site’s ranking with the right keywords. How criminals could exploit iwi names Data harvesting. A visitor searching for their iwi finds iwiname.maori.nz and enters their details, not knowing it is run by criminals building a database of whānau contact details. Phishing. Criminals register names similar to banks and businesses and build near-identical websites. This happens more often than most people think. Misspellings. Scammers register commonly misspelt variants of genuine addresses. Macron variants. Because macrons can now be used in web addresses, look-alike names using “ngāi” or “ngāti” can be registered fraudulently. In .iwi.nz, a fraudulent name is almost impossible to register, and could not stay registered for long without recorded contact details before being cancelled. How the .nz system has treated Māori First published 3 February 2018. The lack of Māori online presence in the early years allowed non-Māori to hijack Māori domain names. The .nz rules allowed this and, in my view, still do. The Domain Name Commission has declined to recognise Māori and iwi rights in its dispute resolution processes. I made several complaints to the Commission and one to the Human Rights Commission, which met with the Domain Name Commission. The domain landscape has changed a great deal: .iwi.nz was opened to all iwi in 2000, .maori.nz was created in 2002, .kiwi.nz in 2012, the .kiwi top-level domain in 2014, and direct registration under .nz from 30 September 2014. Internationally, top-level domains such as .com and .biz have become far more accessible, and many new ones have been introduced. Social media has also removed much of the need for a domain name and website. What to do if your name has been cybersquatted Do not buy it back. Offering to buy a cybersquatted name rewards the behaviour and encourages more hijacking and inflated prices. Choose an alternative. Add Ngāti or Ngāi, use a hyphen, or choose a different suffix (see alternative domains). For iwi, use .iwi.nz. Check the registrant details. Look up the name in the .nz WHOIS. If the details are obviously false (for example “Mickey Mouse”), complain to the Domain Name Commission about false WHOIS information. Consider public exposure, carefully. In the past, publicising cybersquatting has led to quick resolution. Focus on the conduct and the facts, and take advice first. Use the .nz Dispute Resolution Scheme. It is now administered by the New Zealand Dispute Resolution Centre and has two stages: voluntary mediation, then a binding expert determination. When I wrote about it in 2013, the first step was free; check current fees before you begin. Consider trade mark and other legal routes, such as the Fair Trading Act 1986 and the Trade Marks Act 2002, with legal advice. Get expert advice. Talk to a recognised Internet or domain name expert before acting. You are welcome to contact me. Alternative domains for Māori and Indigenous groups First published 31 August 2009. Many Indigenous groups prepare to register a domain name only to find it already cybersquatted, or used by one of their own members for personal purposes. Many assume that if their name is not available as .com, .org, .net or their local country domain, their only choices are expensive litigation or no online presence at all. That is not the case. There are now many country code domains (ccTLDs), generic and new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), and Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs). Other domains are often more descriptive and cost the same as or less than .com or .nz. Languages that use English letters plus extra characters, such as the five Māori macron vowels ā, ē, ī, ō and ū, can use IDNs, with Punycode or a URL shortener so that English-language users can still reach the site. A reputable registrar offering many international domains is the easiest route, and IANA’s root zone database lists every top-level domain. Suffixes that suit Māori words include .am, .fm, .tv, .ae, .ai, .ao, .au, .ie, .io, .me, .mo, .ne, .ro and .ru. Note that several of these country domains require a local presence or have other registration restrictions, and some prices and political risks have changed since 2009, so check each one carefully. .indigi: a proposed Indigenous top-level domain (2009) First published 5 August 2009. .indigi was proposed as a new top-level domain: a self-governing Indigenous equivalent of .com or .org. In late December 2008 I was appointed leader of the initiative (website: www.dotIndigi.com). In 2009 I was preparing an official policy paper on it, due later that year, and wrote this overview because Indigenous groups and potential business partners kept asking me the same questions. Self-governing: an international Indigenous group would govern .indigi and allow Indigenous groups to create their own namespaces within it. A safe haven: corporations, cybersquatters, thieves and racists would not be able to register .indigi names, so information would be protected and authentic by default. Indigenous dispute resolution: disputes would be resolved quickly, fairly and in an Indigenous way, unlike existing intellectual property and defamation processes. Global and multilingual: any Indigenous group in the world could have its own name, and IDNs would let groups write names in their own characters. Some groups asked why I was not helping Indigenous peoples apply for their own top-level domains instead. My answer was that most individual applications would be declined under ICANN’s strict processes, the US-dollar application fee was too expensive for most groups, and many separate new names would pollute and confuse the naming system, making them hard to remember and so of little value. The .indigi top-level domain was never created: it does not appear in IANA’s list of top-level domains as at October 2026. Frequently asked questions What is cybersquatting of Māori domain names? Registering a name belonging in practice to an iwi, hapū, marae or Māori organisation in order to resell it at an inflated price, redirect it to offensive content, or impersonate the group. Why should iwi use .iwi.nz? It is moderated by a person, reserved for iwi, hapū and taurahere rōpū, and assures whānau that the site is genuine. What should I do if my domain name has been cybersquatted? Don’t buy it back. Choose an alternative, check the WHOIS, complain about false details, use the .nz Dispute Resolution Scheme, and get expert advice. Should iwi register their names in .kiwi.nz? No. It looks very like .iwi.nz and can confuse visitors. Use .iwi.nz. What was the .indigi domain proposal? A 2009 proposal for a self-governing Indigenous top-level domain, led by Dr Karaitiana Taiuru. It was never created. Original posts consolidated here Cybersquatting in .maori.nz (27 July 2008) Dot Indigi Domain Name (5 August 2009) Indigenous domain name cybersquatted (31 August 2009) dot kiwi nz launches with new Māori cybersquatting (11 November 2012) Cyber Squatters in Indigenous Domains (1 March 2013) Value of iwi.nz and protection options (23 January 2017) Hijacked Māori domain name still held to ransom 12 years later (3 February 2018) Related: Historical .iwi.nz criteria; Reo Māori email addresses; Māori macrons in domain names. Disclaimer: This post is the personal opinion of Dr Karaitiana Taiuru and is not reflective of the opinions of any organisation that Dr Karaitiana Taiuru is a member of or associates with, unless explicitly stated otherwise.