Australian Internet Domain Names Licensing Review

Greetings from the .au Licensing Rules Review consultation in Canberra. auDA is a not for profit organization with a legislated license to administer Internet domain names which end in .au 

auDA will be holding face to face consultations in Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne, with online consultations as well. auDA is keen to get input. I offered to help by coming up with controversial proposals, such as dutch auctions for domain names: you want the name, you bid the most first, you get it. ;-)

I am here because one of the auDA board suggest I come along. I was a member of the "Internet Cabal" some decades ago, but have not had much to do with it since, apart from paying my domain registration.

There is no proposal for changes, but key issues the panel has identified in the discussion paper are:

1. Domain name monetisation
2. Allocation rules for com.au and net.au
3. Contested .au direct domain names
4. Bad faith and scam registrations
5. Complaint processes
6. Alignment of the .au Licensing Rules with global best practice
7. Anything else

As an example of an issue, companies can make money selling domain names for whatever they think the buyer will pay. Through auDA the public only gets a small fixed amount of this. Perhaps, like mining royalties, there should be a share, based on value, going to the public. 

Another tricky issue is that not-for- profit domain names can't be profited from. But exactly what is not for profit can be unclear. What was interesting was that those presented and others attended searched for analogies to use to understand the unfamiliar and abstract nature of domain names. One used was land speculating. Following this discussion my suggestion of dutch auctions doesn't seem so odd. Perhaps the stock markets providing another analogy.

There was a review in 2018 and changes were made.