Domain Name News

Australian Domains - Registrant Policy Issues Paper Feedback Invited

February 2, 2018

Late last week, auDA, which oversees the .au domain space, released an important public discussion paper concerning the future of Australian domain names.

Calling its recent work on policy and procedure the most significant review relating to major structural changes to .au in three decades, the wide-ranging paper requests feedback on a number of areas, including:

• Direct registrations in .au, including eligibility and allocation rules.
• Whether the .net.au namespace should be closed to new registrations.
• The future of .asn.au - close or retain it?
• The use of state and territory extensions (Geographic Community Domain Names) for other purposes.
• Administration of the public reserved list.
• Reserving and/or deleting domain names where it's in the public's interest to do so.
• Future potential 2LD's.
• Registry reserved names.
• Australian presence requirements definition.
• Internationalised domain names.
• Transfer issues and remnant registration periods.
• Potential for auDA to suspend in addition to cancelling domain licences.
• The collection, use and disclosure of registrant data by auDA.
• Information publicly available in WHOIS data.

One of the questions asked concerning direct registrations in .au that is certain to get a lot of feedback is:

"Should the .au domain namespace be a ‘general purpose’ domain for all Australians allowing use for any purpose?"

Currently the .AU structure is such that each purpose has its own second level domain; e.g. Australian businesses register .com.au names and for personal domain names, .id.au is available

The discussion paper can be downloaded here (PDF). Written submissions responding to some or all of the questions posed must be lodged by 5pm on Sunday 4 March, 2018. If the submission is to be kept confidential, it must be noted as such.

In the interim, auDA is running Policy Review Panel Forums this month in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The first forum will be held next Monday (February 5) at Four Points by Sheraton in Perth. Further details of this and other forums can be viewed here (registration is required to attend).

auDA is the administrator of and self-regulatory policy body for the .au country code TLD and its associated second level domains.

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