The Maori Internet Society hopes to create a new Net domain where Maori or indigenous New Zealanders can set up Maori-related Web sites.
"If we are successful this will be the greatest progress ever for Maori on the Internet," says the society's chairperson Karaitiana Taiuru. "It will be our chance to show the world that we as a people exist."
ISOCNZ owns the company that manages the .nz domain name space. If the proposal is passed the second-level domain would be moderated, or controlled.
To pass, the proposal must clear a number of stages. One of the most crucial is a Web-based vote by New Zealand Internet users. Support of at least 70 percent is required.
Earlier this month New Zealand's first ever "Straw Poll" to determine local Internet community support for the creation of a new Internet domain failed to raise enough support for .bank.nz.
Like the Maori Internet Society, the New Zealand Bankers' Association had applied for a new restricted domain. Votes cast for the new domain reached only 65.47 percent of the total vote and so failed to jump to the next stage.
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