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

Three years ago they filed for the skunkworks trademark in Australia and Lockheed Martin objected.

Of course, Skunk Works is a term that was first coined in 1943 by Lockheed, currently trademarked by Lockheed Martin and widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.

Their pair, without any assistance from lawyers, fought Lockheed Martin by themselves and won! Lou Schillaci told SmartCompany “We have put a lot of time into building the brand – our IP is so quirky that people remember it and that is the whole point. We look at web stats and the just 1% of people who used to come to our site by the word ‘skunkworks’ is up to 17% now, so that tells us people remember it and that is worth money to us.”

In case there was any doubt, Schillaci’s company, Skunkworks Pacific comes up #1 in Google for the term skunkworks.