Japanese Governmental Gyosei Sasshin Kaigi(Regeneration of Administration Committee) [J] announced that they open “Hatomimi.com (or .jp)” from December 2nd for government workers, and in January 2010 for citizens, to receive opinions/requests/suggestions for cutting waste, absurdity, injustice and unfairness in government offices, to realize more efficient government operations. You may send information not only on the website but also by snail mail.
“Hatomimi” part of the Hatomimi.com is written in hiragana (Japanese alphabet). Although the document says “Hatomimi.com (or .jp)”. As it is still “domestic staffs” only, they do not need the site opened, however, all of Hatomimi.com and Hatomimi.jp domains (both in Japanese hiragana domain* and in romanized letters) seem to be squatted by others already.
I am unsure if this really can be a social driven improvement of transparency and disclosure in government, or leads a police state such like Soviet Russia (or name your favourite totalitarian regime) at worst. One sure thing is that no one involved do not understand the internet and domain system, with ordering logos having Yukio Hatoyama, the prime minister’s illustration.
If they have to purchase the domain from squatter, that must be the first waste to be concerned.
(*) Second level domains are available in Japanese letters, though they are very unpopular. Japanese top level domain(TLD) will be coming with other non-English TLDs soon, which I am sceptical its usefulness.
[Update 2010-01-27] It has been launched.
See Also:
Hatomimi.com release [J, pdf, only readable by Internet Explorer]
Yomiuri [J]
Mainichi [J]
