«Hostmaster» failed to prove the illegality of the possession of the domain .ua by the state

The Appeal-economic court of Kyiv approved the decision of the Kyiv economic court, which had rejected the claim of the company «Hostmaster», the acting administrator of the domain .ua. «Hostmaster» appealed against Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 447 of 22 July 2003 «On administration of the domain .ua». By this decree the government endorsed the initiative of the USS and the State Committee of communications, and passed the right to administer the domain .ua to the Ukrainian Network Informational Center (UNIC).

On 7 October, when the Economic court of Kyiv considered the claim of «Hostmaster», the judge did not notice that the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers violated the rights of «Hostmaster», since… the company could work jointly with the UNIC. The judge also pointed out that the rules of the ICANN were not regarded as a source of right in Ukraine and could not be applied by court.

In 1992 the domain .ua was rendered by the international organization IANA (which is called ICANN now) to Ukrainian citizens Dmitriy Kokhmaniuk and Igor Sviridov in the interests of the entire Ukrainian Internet-community. Before 2001 the domain was developed by several enthusiasts, who had created the Ukrainian network coordination group (UANCG). In 2001 they founded the company «Hostmaster», which concluded the agreement with D. Kokhmaniuk and I. Sviridov and began to administer the domain. The Ukrainian government started to claim their rights to the domain since 2001. Initially it had been planned that the state share in the enterprise, which was called the UNIC, would be 25%, but later this share increased to 50%.

The creation of the UNIC was accompanied with a scandal: the greatest providers’ association «Internet-Association of Ukraine», which united 70 participants of the market (including the large-scale providing companies) and took part in the negotiations on the creation of such center, refused from membership in the UNIC.

In the end of October 2003 the international human rights protecting organization «Reporters without frontiers» expressed its anxiety about the attempts of the USS to take control of the domain .ua. A copy of the appeal was sent to the ICANN.