Niue: The island that has been fighting for internet dominance for 20 years – 02/23/2024 – Tech

The South Pacific island of Niue (pronounced Niue) is one of the most remote places in the world. Its closest neighbors, Tonga and American Samoa, are hundreds of miles away.

The advent of the internet promised, in a way, to make the island and its approximately 2,000 inhabitants more connected with the rest of the world.

In the late 1990s, an American businessman offered to connect her to the internet. All he wanted in return was the right to control the “.nu” suffix Niue received for its web addresses [equivalente ao “.br” do Brasil].

The domain didn’t seem as lucrative as “.tv” — which was assigned to Tuvalu, another South Pacific country — and Niue’s leaders agreed to the deal. But soon the two parties fell into disagreement.

Now, after more than two decades of back and forth, the disagreement is finally close to a resolution — in a court of law. Disputes over internet domains were not uncommon in the early days of the internet, but experts can’t recall one that lasted this long.

It turned out that the “.nu” was, in fact, very valuable. “Nu” means “now” in Swedish, Danish and Dutch, and thousands of Scandinavians have registered websites with that suffix, creating a steady business for Niuean business partner Bill Semich.

Niue, a coral island of about 260 square kilometers, felt it was being robbed of a reliable source of money that would have helped reduce its dependence on tourism and foreign aid.

The island has turned to unconventional sources of income before, selling stamps and coins to collectors. It also rented its international dialing code — until its largely Christian residents began to be woken up at midnight by phone sex calls from Japan.

Niue canceled the agreement with Semich in 2000 and has since tried to reclaim the “.nu” domain, which is now operated by the NGO Swedish Internet Foundation [Fundação da Internet Sueca]. The island wants around US$30 million from the foundation to repair damages, an amount that could be transformative for a place that was only recognized by the United States as a sovereign state in 2023.

The dispute ended up in Swedish courts, and a judge in Stockholm began hearing Niue’s arguments last week — a decision is expected in the coming days.

“This is a unique, complex and somewhat strange case,” said David Taylor, an intellectual property and domains specialist at law firm Hogan Lovells, adding that this made it extremely difficult to predict the outcome.

For Niue’s leader, it’s a fight for self-determination. Niue is autonomous but largely dependent on New Zealand, and the two have a political relationship known as free association.

“We are victims of digital colonialism,” Niue Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi said via video call from his office in the capital Alofi.

“This domain, .nu, recognizes Niue as a sovereign country. This is important to our identity.”

Critics question this assessment, as there is no sovereignty in cyberspace, only administrative zones that divide the web into domains such as “.nu” and, for example, the suffix “.nz”, attributed to New Zealand.

Winning the case could help ensure Niue’s long-term survival, Tagelagi said. The island’s population is now about a third of what it was in the 1960s, and the empty houses that dot the island are a reminder of the people who left in search of better economic opportunities.

A victory could help finance its bid to join the UN, in the same way that Tuvalu gained membership after monetizing “.tv”.

If Niue can get the “.nu” back, it could make up to $2 million in revenue a year, according to Par Brumark, a domain expert who is acting on Niue’s behalf in the case.

Semich has repeatedly denied Niue’s allegations of misconduct. In 2013, his company, Internet Users Society Niue (IUSN), made an agreement to transfer the operation of “.nu” to the Swedish Internet Foundation, which manages Sweden’s “.se” domain.

Niue moved to sue. A multi-year battle that went all the way to Sweden’s Supreme Court ensued until the country’s judiciary decided to hear Niue’s arguments.

Jannike Tilla, vice president of the foundation, rejected Niue’s claims and said she was an IUSN subcontractor. She added: “The domain is highly relevant for Swedish users, especially for many institutions that play a critical role in society.”

Some Swedish newspapers, for example, have “.nu” in their web addresses. Sites using the domain are unlikely to face changes even if Niue wins.

IUSN directed questions to Emani Lui, a newly elected member of Niue’s Parliament. Lui runs the only private internet provider in Niue, previously worked with IUSN and is the son of the prime minister who signed the original deal with Semich.

He said the dispute over “.nu” had become so bitter that governments had lost sight of other options Niue had.

“We would have the best in the Pacific, probably one of the best communications systems in the world” if Niue had agreed to the IUSN, he said. “It wasn’t accepted. It was more like: We want the money.”

Tagelagi, the prime minister, rejects this idea.

“It’s morality. Every nation, regardless of size, must be treated fairly and equally,” he said. “Sometimes we are ignored because we are a small island in the big blue ocean. But you can’t be patient forever.”