It would be interesting to know more details on this. Is this Hostmaster 
company a Ukranian firm?

In many cases, ccTLDs have been arbitrarily delegated, even to private 
individuals (like the case of Brazil, luckily to one of our best Internet 
wizards, Demi Getschko). In several of these cases, of course, a proper 
national governance has been created (like in Brazil, again) and took care 
of this sort of "random" way to delegate domains.

I recommend we study carefully the history of how domains were delegated 
and taken over in each country before jumping to generalized conclusions. 
If there is more detailed info like this regarding Ukraine, it would be 
great to know.

--c.a.

At 01:17 PM 11/26/2003, Chris Chiu wrote:
>Hostmaster Ltd is planning to appeal after a court dismissed its lawsuit 
>to prevent the government of Ukraine from taking control of the country's 
>top-level domain. These and other moves by Ukranian authorities have 
>provoked concern from various groups, including Reporters Sans Frontieres, 
>which fears that the Ukrainian government's "bid to take over management 
>of the national domain name '.ua', currently in the hands of the private 
>firm Hostmaster, and its proposal that parliament legalise e-mail 
>monitoring, will allow it to effectively gag online activity."
>
>See
>http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/#highlights
>
>Sincerely,
>Christopher Chiu
>Technology Policy Analyst
>American Civil Liberties Union


===
Carlos A. Afonso
diretor de planejamento e estratégia
Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor - Rits
http://www.rits.org.br