Last week, auDA unilaterally cancelled Domain Director’s domain name registration for auregistry.com.au. Domain Directors have owned and used the domain name auregistry.com.au for the past eight years.

Tony Lentino, the CEO of Domain Directors, said this afternoon:

I am shocked at auDA’s actions.  auDA brought down one of my long standing websites.  auDA wrote the policy, made the complaint to itself, and acted as judge and jury, and then deleted my DNS entry without informing me.  With auDA governing the system, no Australian domain name is safe.

Originally, auDA informed Domain Directors that a third party had made a complaint about the auregistry.com.au domain name, but after the lawsuit was commences, the lawyers for  auDA’s informed Domain Directors that in fact, no complaint had been made.

John Swinson, partner of Mallesons Stephen Jaques which is representing Domain Directors, says that the dispute will be heard in the Supreme Court of Queensland on Friday, 21 November.

Domain Directors is an international registrar and provides an extensive range of over 200 country code Top Level Domain name extensions across Europe, America, and the Asia Pacific regions.

About Domain Directors

Domain Directors is a global supplier in the Domain Name and ENUM industry, with its head office in Melbourne, and offices in New Zealand and China.

For more information about Domain Directors, and its associated company, Instra Corporation, please visit http://www.instra.com

For Media Enquiries, please contact: media@instra.com

— ends —

Note: I received the above Press Release a few hours ago; I’m not in a position to check the facts around this case right now, but I’ll be asking auDA for comment this afternoon.

Following on, there were a number of interesting statements made under the banner of “we don’t like”. For example:

• shoes.com.au - we expect a shoe site.
• we don’t like mis-spellings

Registrars as a monetizer - not comfortable with that. “You should make a choice between being a registrar and a domainer is not acceptable in our world.”

auDA is thinking about publishing a list of drop names. One to keep an eye on.

• 1 million .au names in November 2007
• 1 million .com.au names in June 2008
• Currently 1.25+ million .au names
• Average 25% annual growth

Adrian talked a LOT (in fact too much) about AusRegistry, explained some auDA policy around domain name monetization. For example, you can acquire a name if your primary business is to monetize. While there is no formal policy on domain tasting, there is a 3 day grace period.

Here is an interest graph of growth in the sector:

Personal comment: Given the low CPC rates and the population, I’d still question the viability of this space.

• Most legal actions are initiated by small business
• Time taken to litigate can be a number of years

Key questions in seeking judicial review of  auDA’s decisions:

• auDA claims its not subject to Trade Practices Act. See Capital Networks Pty Ltd v .au Domain Administration Limited 2004 FCA 808
• auDA imposes a limitation of liability / exclusion in all domain name licenses.

This is the podcast from an event I attended at the Churchill Club in Melbourne. The panelists were:

Richard Moore - CEO, Dark Blue Sea Ltd
Bruce Tonkin - CTO, Melbourne IT Ltd
Jo Lim - Chief Policy Officer, .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA)

Thanks for Brendan Lewis (who was also the moderator) for permission to reproduce the podcast of the event.

I hope you enjoy it.

1. “The Panel recommends that auDA should require all overseas accredited registrars to register with ASIC to trade in Australia.”

That’s going to irritate the overseas registrars who have largely operated remotely; some of which have multiple credentials.

2. “auDA should work with the registrar community to develop a policy to ensure fair and equitable access to the registry so that the ownership of a number of registrar accreditations does not create an unfair market advantage.”

Again - they are worried about registrars having multiple credentials and picking up dropped domains. Lets share the love and hold hands.

3. “The Panel believes that the current policy on the registration of domain names by registrars on their own behalf is satisfactory. The Panel believes that auDA should work to ensure fairness and transparency in the provision of registrar services and access to information that may provide a market advantage. The Panel makes no recommendation in this draft document but will consider the issue again after receipt of public comments.” I think this might be code for lets stick our heads in the sand and see if anyone notices.

Yes I’m a capitalist - if someone can put up the cash and run multiple registrars, then great. Why should a growing industry like domain name sales, be hampered by further regulation? It doesn’t make sense to me.

The Panel has released an Issues Paper for public consultation, which sets out the current situation and canvasses the issues and possible options for change. The closing date for submissions is Friday 1 August 2008.

Here are a few interesting points:

• “Abandon the competitive registry model and make auDA the registry operator”
  

This sounds like someone has been talking too much to ICANN or Verisign.

• “the start-up capital costs constitute the most significant barrier for prospective new entrants” Ohhh.. the poor kids down the road can’t become an operator.

HELLO, its called capitalism ! I’d note that “Accredited registrars pay an annual fee to auDA of $3,300 and there is also a $2,200 non-refundable accreditation application fee.”

• “auDA does not have the legal power to impose financial penalties on a registrar who has breached the Registrar Agreement.”

So registrars can basically do whatever they want as long as its not serious, to the point of suspension or termination the registrar’s accreditation.

• “Questions have been raised however, about the extent to which registrars should be allowed to participate in domain-related activities other than the core business of registering domain names for registrants. For example, is it appropriate or desirable for registrars to be in the business of warehousing domain names for their own domain monetisation purposes?”
  

Watch out - its those evil domainers again!

• “It has been suggested that this lack of market transparency could be addressed by publishing a list of deleted and expiring domain names, or by placing the domain names in a “holding pool” for a period of time before making them available to the general public.“

This is just a bad idea. Again, see the word capitalism. Looking into my crystal ball I see auDA being in a position to profit from this “holding pool”. Who will have the independence to maintain it?

It appears that auDA needs all the help it can get. Have a look at the Issues Paper and send your comments to:

auDA Industry Competition Advisory Panel
email: info@auda.org.au
fax: 03 8341 4112

For those that don’t know, auDA is a government endorsed entity that was formed in 2000, so administer the .au domain space.

To date, auDA has resisted attempts to open up the .com.au namespace so that anyone can register a domain name. In fact, their policies are just plain prehistoric. Around December 2007, auDA “suspended new registrar accreditation applications”. The auDA board minutes tell us that this was “due to a backlog”, however if you read on it also says “noted some challenges that have arisen recently, with more overseas-based applicants and existing registrars seeking multiple accreditations.” In other words - bunker down kids - those evil domainers are comin!

Policy

Last year, the auDA Names Policy Panel made a recommendation to the auDA board that the transfers policy “be relaxed”. In simple terms, the new policy says:

• You can’t register a domain name”for the sole purpose of resale or transfer to a third party“.

• You can’t transfer your domain name for the first 6 months.

• You can sell a domain name after 6 months.

• If you transfer it to someone else, then you “will be asked to disclose the sale method and price, on a voluntary and confidential basis”.

• auDA may “collect aggregated statistical data to improve access to market information for buyers and sellers.”

So, how is auDA going to enforce these rules? No, really. What’s in it for auDA to collect market data - apart from promoting domain name prices in a heavily regulated market?

How Do I Register?

Before you jump in and say “EUREKA - I’m going to get me some .com.au domains” - you also still need to qualify under the eligibility and allocation rules. This basically means you need to be Australian and/or have a company structure / ABN.

In any case, the media has gotten wind of this and is hyping it up to be an “open market”. While its step in the right direction, the restrictions are still a joke.

Perhaps the Australian Internet industry needs an industry body that represents those that want a free and open, commercial market? Should auDA even exist? What do you think?