This article is such tendentious... :-(
Dear author, you "forgot" to tell lot of things, f.e. the most important:
- Current operator of .sk domain (private company DanubiaTel) have gained this business with no tender, no public competition, but by direct order of one former minister (btw. on the last day in his chair) with strong and loud disapproval of whole local internet community, including all web hosting providers, registrators, telco operators and academic community
- There is valid contract between government and DanubiaTel. This contract guarantees all rights to .sk domain to the DanubiaTel, including registration rules and price policy. Yes, there is (as you wrote) kind of committee with representation of three parties (government, DanubiaTel and "internet community") with formal rights to decide all this issues. But there is also one fact, that DanubiaTel can block all decisions of committee, because statute says, that without representatives of DanubiaTel, there can not be made any decision. Another thing is, all responsible government officials (including gov representatives in committee) are very likely on a payroll of DanubiaTel, judging by their votes in committee, which are fully in the line with the interest of DanubiaTel. Due to the fact, that in the contract is not exactly defined who is "internet community", also almost all representatives of this body are nominated by consensus between DanubiaTel and responsible government officials. There is only one exeption - after many years registrars were able to get one chair in the committee, but with one chair (and one vote) they have no real influence. But now they are at least informed about events regarding .sk domain.
- This amazing contract can not be terminated. Actually, it could be, but only with approval of committee, which is not possible without votes of DanubiaTel representatives.
- This contract btw. says, that DanubiaTel can keep all revenues from .sk domain and pays nothing to the government. There is only one obligation - DanubiaTel should invest 5% of the revenues to public beneficial projects, what they does not do in a first place, and there is also not defined what does it exactly mean. They can invest this resources also to their own projects.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
