http://www.auda.org.au/2010npp/2010npp-index/

May I suggest if you value your domain name assest ( s) you vote immediatel ly on this

The red tape, over restrictive AUDA policy rules have kept the australian economy behind the rest of the world online and if Australia wants to start seeing economic growth, more online entrepreneurs and investment some things need to change in Auda Policy. Its fairly easy...

1. Make AUDA .com.au and .net.au rules the same as .com rules and have same pricing and registration structure.

- anyone can register and sell a .com.au and .net.au domain name
- you can register for 1, 2, 5, 10 years
- the administration for registrant transfers is fast, online and free ( same as .com)
- Monetisation is allowed as, non use is allowed, leasing is allowed, parking is allowed... you can do whatever you want as its your assest you paid for ! ( same as .com)

2. Cut the AUDA red tape and deregulate the old rules that have hurt the online economy of Australia for too long.

3. More online Australian websites, entrepreneurs and investors is better for Australia... or people will just keep using .com names which are far cheaper and easier to register and sell.

4. Wouldnt Auda be better with 1 million extra .com.au .net.au names registered and renewed here instead of australians going for .com names instead due to the over restrictive current auda rules? ( auda gets a fee for every .com.au and .net domain name registered and renewed but they wont get anything if people keep going for the easier to register and sell for .com instead as in many cases they have)

I concur, sounds good.

I've always thought you should at least be able to just buy a .com.au as a regular Aussie without having to be a business/ABN etc too. Even if they open up .com.au to a valid drivers license number or just "Australian Presence" like a lot of other gTLDs that would be great.

Realistically it is not very well policed as it is so they may as well make it a free for all.

__________________
cherrytron

That's the biggest issue. Too many bloggers, students, special interest groups not catered fort in .AU and having to use gTLDs.

id.au just doesn't cut it (plus it has to be your name or a nickname not a generic word)

__________________
CocktailRecipes.com.au ★ Photographers.com.au ★ DebitCard.com.au ★ Hockey.com.au ★ Boxing.com.au ★ DomainName.com.au

Yeah which is terrible. The challenge to get people to type ".com.au" vs ".com" is hard enough, let alone explaining that your website is on ".id.au" .. my Mum would think it was a virus - "it looks like some funny website virus thing". Haha

__________________
cherrytron

Funny thing is "Domainers" are the ONLY ones that get humg-up on type-ins and ".Tlds".
Users tend to use search Engines.
Even when type in URLs they still use google / Bing search engine search box rather than directly into the Browser URL entry box.

Domainers need to actually watch, observe and collate more user experience data.

__________________
Managing Million Dollar Sites since 2004

The only people who think that the AU rules should be relaxed are domainers.

I remember back in the late nineties and through the early part of the last decade when a .com.au domain instantly gave websites credibility over a .com domain. Buying something from a .com was always a little dicey, but you knew if was a .com.au that there was a legitimate Australian business behind the website.

Now though, people are going out and registering dozens (hundreds in some cases) of .com.au domains and throwing rubbish content on them in the chase for a big payday that will likely never happen for 99.9% of domains. It devalues the extension as a whole.

In my opinion it's bad enough already, but if the AU market was opened up completely it would be an absolute mess and would actually decrease the credibility of the extension. It would take away all the trust that AU domains have developed when compared to a .com or .net etc.

I stand by my earlier comments that the registration fees on AU domains should be increased. This will help to flush the scum out of the industry and leave us with domainers who actually build quality sites and are willing to invest properly in them, rather than those who register a hundred crap domains, stick zero-value-adding Wordpress sites on them and hold legitimate businesses to ransom by asking ridiculous prices for them when approached.

When I started my insurance business, I came up with plenty of good names that I wanted for my business that weren't used elsewhere, but often the domain was registered with either no site or a sh!t parking site on there. When I would contact the owners, I'd either get no response or they'd ask a ridiculous figure like $10k for a non-generic name. When I'd tell them they were kidding themselves, they'd refer me to some barely-relevant .com sale for a million bucks.

Thankfully I ended up with a business name that had the domain available, and now that I've developed it and built a strong business out of it, that domain is worth more to me than any other domain I could think of.

And that's the beauty of the AU space, or at least it was until a few years ago. People like me can still start a new business and register the corresponding domain without being held to ransom. If I wanted to start the same business in the UK, US or Germany, I would probably have some terrible business name and/or domain name because of their deregulated market.

So to all the domainers out there (and I class myself as one too) please stop thinking about yourself and your own personal gain, and think about the wider business community. Making the AU market a free-for-all may be great for the 0.001% percent of the population who make money from domains, but it is definitely not good for business, innovation and the general population in Australia.

Sorry about the rant, just sick of self-important domainers thinking the rules should be made purely to suit themselves.

__________________
SMSF

I agree with what you are saying but I think if a business wanted to set up a website they have had more then enough time to do so. Sure opening up the .com.au space to Australians, I do not think will make huge waves of money for people but I am sure if they made it international then it would increase values.

I would disagree that if you have a Wordpress with quality content and well optimized for SEO, links ect which equates in ranking for related keywords will increase the domains overall value. But really any crappy website you make is probably never going to make money, I have a few sites which I am not too proud of and they are only say 5 pages long they do not create the revenue of a 500 pages site.

I think registration prices are already quite fair $20/ 2 years at Ventra, I mean they are not like .info domains which are 99 cents and they create a free for all for spammers to make 20 .info sites for the price of registering 1 .com.au!!

__________________
Check out my sites: Sydney SEO and Social Media|SEO Australia |Professional SEO |Life Insurance Cover |
Backlinks
For Professional SEO and Social Media Consulting from a well known local consultant, Linkbuilding and more email: contact(at)professionalseo.com.au (Say you are from DNTrade, too be looked after!)

one
Do you need to call people scum?
In my opinion, com.au domain names should be available for ALL Australians to register or buy
Does that make me scum?

__________________
Joes.com.au

Hmmm... what about students and bloggers etc? They all use gTLDs because the only option for them in .au is their name (or a nickname) in the unpopular id.au?

What about the 6 month rule? Does ANYONE have any idea what purpose it serves?

What about a website owner that registers in good faith a domain like acc.net.au, builds a website but then has it deleted because it's a misspelling of abc.net.au?

What about the innocent domain owner who get's a malicious complaint about their site simply because someone else covers their domain?

What about the business owner who wants to register their domain for 5 years instead of 2 so he doesn't have to remember to renew it every 2 years?

What about the event holder who's running an event for 1 month only and would rather register a name for less than 2 years?

What about auDA (yes auDA!) who lose money due to Australians registering gTLDs?

Believe me there are lots of people who want to see more relaxed regulations

__________________
CocktailRecipes.com.au ★ Photographers.com.au ★ DebitCard.com.au ★ Hockey.com.au ★ Boxing.com.au ★ DomainName.com.au

This makes sense given that domainers are predominately the only ones aware of the rules for obvious reasons. Sure, relaxing the rules would make things better for domainers but that isn't a bad thing.

Credibility is no longer an issue, people are buying goods from overseas websites all the time. Most of these international retailers are on .coms and the lack of rules have not affected negatively at all.

The people paying to register these domains must feel they have some value to part with their money. What you consider rubbish content may be of some value to someone else.

Trust is no longer an issue. Aussies are happy to shop online with local or international sites. Trust is based on a relationship between me and another site. It's not based on what other people are doing in the same webspace.

There are plenty of .com's that I don't trust, this has never stopped me trusting other .coms. The same applies to millions of other people.

Upping the rego fees will just stifle the growth of .com.au when people can pick up a .com for under $10. Again, the issues of investing in a domain and the quality of a site is subjective. If someone wants to stick a wordpress blog up on their site and post shit I don't find valuable, I don't have to read it or visit again.

When I started my insurance business, I came up with plenty of good names that many other people had thought of before. Often the domain was registered with either no site or shit parking on there because I wasn't the first to think of the name. When I woul contact owners, I'd either get no response (no surprises there with your attitude) or they'd ask what I felt was a ridiculous figure like $10k for a non-generic name. Instead of trying to think of another name, I'd tell them all about my self entitlement and why they should sell their domain to me at a price I dictate.

Cool, so you finally thought up a name and the domain was available. Just imagine if someone else thinks of that name and decides they want to purchase it and low ball you or suggest your site is junk and has zero value.



Why would domainers and other people going into business think about anyone else aside their customers? Doesn't make good business sense at all.

Opening up .com.au would give us more competition which leads to a better quality sites for people to visit and increase the value of our domains.