#H3 The Dot Nom Za Domain

South Africa partakes in the [multistakeholder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance) model of internet governance, which grants some role to civil
society along with government & business. One interesting result of this is that we have a non-commercial domain space for personal use, in the form of 
[your_name].nom.za URLs of which each person may have (not **own** - you can't sell it) one for life (on condition they actually use it). This has been around for years
but almost nobody knows about it, because most of the people who do, work in the industry which makes money renting out domains by the year, and they would lose trade
if they advertised a free alternative.

The most exciting (to me) aspect of this is that the intention is, when 10 000 such domains have been registered, to call a general meeting of registrants 
at which the future of the name-space will be decided, with a preference towards co-operative governance. While it may be helpful to have the government involved 
in some way (e.g. in resolving contested identities), the last thing we want is for politicians to have the power to deprive anyone of their domain. Hence some form
of foundation or trust could be launched as titular holder of the space.

![Screenshot of the login page of the .nom.za website](nomza.png)