Draft recommendations from the 2015 Names Policy Panel

[Cooper Mills DomainLawyer]

Erhan, the panel says it believes no hierarchy of rights exist.

As a panel member is that your position?

As a panel member we can't discuss the internal panel discussions, but I can say that in the context of releasing .au domains, the statement you quote is not my position.
It is really important that everyone on DNT makes a submission clearly setting out what they think and WHY. It is also useful to include facts to support your position, which ever way you argue, you then have a more compelling argument which is not emotional.

 

[Cooper Mills DomainLawyer]

For those that have businesses and trademarks, some of the proposals are quite concerning. When you've invested substantial funds into your IP (domains, trademarks, business name, logo, marketing activities etc..), to then have .au be released, and your brand be available to anyone for registration in a 'free for all' situation or an auction ....that's absolutely crazy in my opinion. At the moment much of the discussion is based on assumptions, because we don't really have much detail at all on how the processes would work.

As a domainer, there's the risk that the value of our investments will be diluted, potentially quite significantly. There's also the rather daunting question of "do I buy (or try to buy) the matching .au for all of my particularly valuable domains"?

Hi Demonoid I would be looking at what .uk and .nz did, and maybe using the data and experience in those jurisdictions to support any submissions you make.

 

[Horshack]

I sometimes wonder why people who have invested substantial funds in their IP, businesses and trademarks haven't just spent the $20 registering the .net.au form of their name to protect their position. I know that it's something that I always consider knowing full well that they are available to register on equal terms. So much to gain from so little investment for a business. Is it too late to complain now?

 

[eBranding.com.au]

I sometimes wonder why people who have invested substantial funds in their IP, businesses and trademarks haven't just spent the $20 registering the .net.au form of their name to protect their position. I know that it's something that I always consider knowing full well that they are available to register on equal terms. So much to gain from so little investment for a business. Is it too late to complain now?

Yeah, except that's not always possible. Top-tier terms are usually gone in both.
Sometimes I have been lucky enough to be able to buy the .net.au from the owner or catch it on the drop, but again that's not always possible.

 

[Bacon Farmer]

Nobody cares about the .net.au because it's no threat but the .au will eventually displace the .com.au.

Pretty simple really.

 

[Bacon Farmer]

Erhan, I find it disconcerting that the panel has determined a position regarding hierarchy of rights when that issue is at the crux of this and should be itself be subject to serious discussion.

I also find it disconcerting that the panels position is at odds to, several panel members, personal opinions.

How can a panel have a stated position when it differs to that of several members?

 

[findtim]

Erhan, the panel says it believes no hierarchy of rights exist.

As a panel member is that your position?

with all due respect, i think its probably inappropriate to ask that of a board member , erhan has been gracious to state some opinions and suggests but in reality all people on the panel and the board need to keep themselves neutral and we have to respect that IMO.

as erhan stated he has always been proactive for the industry in whole.

whats most important is that we all do the survey, get as many of our clients to do the survey and then the masses will be taken note of we hope.

tim

 

[findtim]

Is it too late to complain now?

its not really a case of complaining, the situation is often this:
a .com.au got registered, someone else came late to the game and registered the .net.au, the .com.au drops and someone gets it........... now here's the twist, its not just domainers that register dropped .com.au's , i registered a drop domain BEFORE i knew anything about dnt,drop,NF .......... the domain just "double dropped" and i found it one night and went YIPPEE.

i can prove this.

but if the .net.au was registered before i hand reg'd the .com.au who wins out ? the .net.au owner didn't know about it as they wouldn't have not registered it ?

its just a mess about to happen.

so , i can't register the .net.au , someone else has it, and come the end of the day WHO decides who gets the .au ? oohhh, i'll tell you ! someone that has a financial benefit that's who and the plans are already in motion IMO.

as others have stated, its been a longgggggggggggggg time that the .com.au has been the dominate extension and it seems only fair that the .com.au ( if it happens ) get the .au , i'm presently putting together an email to send to my clients briefly detailing the potential cost of a change to .au

draft : " what it means to you, you pay more money ONGOING in the future, stationery may need changing, adverts, brochures, business cards, signage etc "

so i think everyone can stop talking about "its only another $20 "
tim

 

[robert]

At first I was open to the .au 2LD coming into existence, but now I just think it's going to be messy, confusing and water down all Australian domain names. However, IF it forces it's way into existence, what do you think would happen to our TLD hierarchy system - I have created a new thread for this over >> HERE <<

 

[robert]

IF the .au 2LD came in - and first-rights were given to .com.au holders, over .net.au holders (doubt it!), where would the hyphen people stand?

You know...
SydneyNews.com.au
SydneyNews.net.au
Sydney-News.com.au

Would the hyphen people get first rights too? Where does it end, I guess?

 

[Bacon Farmer]

with all due respect, i think its probably inappropriate to ask that of a board member ,...

tim

Tim, Erhan is a panel member and the report said the panels position is that there should be no hierarchy of rights. I didn't believe that was a consensus view and the report was wrong to state that. By asking Erhan his view I've proved that position is not unanimous and it should be challenged.

I feel it is entirely appropriate to ask Erhan as a panel member and as a member here and don't believe it is any way disrespectful.

For the record, I hold Erhan in the highest regard.

 

[DomainNames]

Following public consultation for the Issues Paper, draft recommendations were released by the Names Policy Panel today:
http://www.domainer.com.au/draft-recommendations-from-the-2015-names-policy-panel/

Submissions on the draft recommendations are open until 30 September 2015, more details are available on the auDA website here.

The issues being considered will directly affect many of us, so make sure you have your say!

Join Auda as a member http://auda.org.au/about-auda/membership/

VOTE NO in the survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WKZZLPV to the push of some to bring in .AU for their own financial gain no matter what the cost to existing registrants and small businesses.
In 2007 and 2010 the exact same issue was surveyed, debated and the vote was NO by the Public and Panel. Nothing has changed...just the same push by some who want to make the domain registration fees and renewal money from businesses who need to defense register another useless extension

 

[robert]

Further to my comment earlier, there is no way that auDA would auction .au between .com.au and .net.au (and .org.au and .gov.au and .asn.au) registrants. To do so would be inimical to 200 years of common law as the concession that existing registrants have a greater right to .au than all others itself concedes there are rights and/or legitimate expectations held by such registrants that are capable of infraction. If those registrants are compelled to expend more than a nominal amount to protect their existing rights (or arguably, any amount), then this would be a diminution of their existing rights. Fortunately, sensible minds, guided by Erhan Karabardak among others, will no doubt prevail.

.Melbourne gTLD gave Trademark Holders and Government organisations first-rights before the general public.
"For months, only a limited number of applicants who met certain criteria were allowed to apply for a .melbourne domain." this excerpt comes from ABC.NET.AU (.) There is another good read here - The Australian

I don't think it is sensible to force .au onto everyone, especially when hardly anyone knows there is a panel discussing the concept at the moment. Look how .melbourne and .sydney were received. My guess is, that will be how .au will be received if it gets off the ground.
Early applicants who were given first-rights to these new fancy TLDs were charged crazy initial-purchase fees to secure the name before the open market had a go.
Now hardly any of these businesses use these new TLDs. But a few people made a lot of money out of it.
I bet the person who owns hotels.melbourne wishes he/she owned melbournehotels.com.au instead and didn't waste their money.

 

[DomainNames]

A few people appear to be again pushing the new .au extension for these reasons

• .au auction money
• au registration money
• .au renewal money
• .au dispute money

Surveyed and voted on NO in 2007
Surveyed and voted on NO in 2010/ 2011
Survey and vote 2015 pending....
Survey and vote 2018 proposed...
Survey and Vote 2021 proposed.....
Survey and Vote 2023 proposed

Do not doubt some people will push as hard as they can to get this into place for the money it will bring them . There is no actual demand for another new .au extension except one that is being forcefully created by media campaigns.

The survey is not clear and it does not provide enough information for novice users and novice registrants etc

3 million .com.au registrants deserve a vote before any new au extension is even considered by Auda, any panel or board and they should not be recommending the change already as is the case in some media, new stories and blogs which went out the same day this week funnily enough .

 

[robert]

Robert Elz created the .com.au TLD shortly after being given full control of the .au ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) in March 1986. Australia was the fourth country to request a ccTLD on the internet, thanks to Elz. He set up our TLD system at the time for a reason. He never explained it, but from what I can tell, the .au ccTLD was designed as a controlling "head" of second-level domains such as .com.au, .net.au, .org.au(.) This gave the tale-end of Australian domain names some sort of order, a separation of second-level domains under a single Country Code master. A graceful separation.
He could have decided at the very beginning for Australia to have one simple .au (TLD) to the end of our domain names, and just lump different internet user communities all together into one great big heap... But he specifically chose not to do this. It looks as though he wanted to create the ability to maintain different policies most appropriate for different communities of internet users. This would make sense.
He implemented and personally enforced strict rules as to who could purchase Australian domain names, even stricter rules than now. He did not allow geo or product names, only registered companies or businesses in Australia could purchase a .com.au TLD. This was different to how other ccTLD operators around the world were doing it at the time, which brought a certain calibre of status to the Australian domain name.
Robert Elz should be completely credited and applauded for giving our now famous and powerful .com.au TLD its global, world-class credibility that we enjoy today. All due to the way he created it.
Now, 25 years later, we're discussing allowing .au to exist as its own TLD, thus undermining the awesome system that Robert Elz first invented at the very beginning of the Australian internet.
.com.au is currently famous, powerful and cool.
For what purpose do we need to change this system?

 

[DomainNames]

Robert Elz created the .com.au TLD shortly after being given full control of the .au ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) in March 1986. Australia was the fourth country to request a ccTLD on the internet, thanks to Elz. He set up our TLD system at the time for a reason. He never explained it, but from what I can tell, the .au ccTLD was designed as a controlling "head" of second-level domains such as .com.au, .net.au, .org.au(.) This gave the tale-end of Australian domain names some sort of order, a separation of second-level domains under a single Country Code master. A graceful separation.
He could have decided at the very beginning for Australia to have one simple .au (TLD) to the end of our domain names, and just lump different internet user communities all together into one great big heap... But he specifically chose not to do this. It looks as though he wanted to create the ability to maintain different policies most appropriate for different communities of internet users. This would make sense.
He implemented and personally enforced strict rules as to who could purchase Australian domain names, even stricter rules than now. He did not allow geo or product names, only registered companies or businesses in Australia could purchase a .com.au TLD. This was different to how other ccTLD operators around the world were doing it at the time, which brought a certain calibre of status to the Australian domain name.
Robert Elz should be completely credited and applauded for giving our now famous and powerful .com.au TLD its global, world-class credibility that we enjoy today. All due to the way he created it.
Now, 25 years later, we're discussing allowing .au to exist as its own TLD, thus undermining the awesome system that Robert Elz first invented at the very beginning of the Australian internet.
.com.au is currently famous, powerful and cool.
For what purpose do we need to change this system?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Robert_Elz
Elz was, however, criticised during his tenure, as domain name applications often took many months to be examined, despite the commercialisation of the Internet and customer demands for quick turnaround times. He was also responsible for the controversial handing-over of the operation of ".com.au" to Melbourne IT in 1996.[6]

EORTH READING
http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OzI04.html
(4) Domain-Name Management
The final area of governance in which local activities are important is domain-names, specifically those within the ccTLD, .au. From 1986 until 2001, the authority for the .au domain was with Robert Elz. For a considerable period of time, all second-level domains (2LDs) were entirely administered on a voluntary basis. Elz delegated to Geoff Huston, who administered edu.au, gov.au and info.au; Hugh Irvine, through connect.com, administered net.au; and Michael Malone, through Connect West, administered asn.au. Elz himself administered com.au, org.au, id.au and oz.au.

From the outset in 1994, Australia has had about the fifth to tenth largest number of active domains of any country. The heavy majority of these were in the com.au domain. By 1996, the dot.com madness was accelerating, the volume of activity was very high, policies were unclear and not consistently applied, and intellectual property law was about to impose itself on domain-name administration in a manner completely foreign to the ethos of Internet engineers. It quickly became clear that the registration process, particularly for com.au, needed to be migrated to some more formalised and better resourced arrangement. With effect from October 1996, Robert Elz awarded a five-year licence to administer com.au to Melbourne IT Ltd. This was a commercial offshoot of Melbourne University, which considered that it had subsidised the cost of Elz's labours on behalf of the Australian Internet community for many years.

Melbourne IT seized the opportunity to establish a substantial business, and promptly started charging for domain name registrations. This caused considerable ill-feeling among some parts of the Australian Internet industry and community, especially as no other licences were issued, and Melbourne IT therefore had a 5-year monopoly to exploit. During the second half of the 1990s, the context was changing rapidly "from cooperative engineering utility to the frenzied focus of world-wide governments; from boring administrivia to commercial power-grab" (Lance 1998).

Much more than just the com.au 2LD needed to be addressed. Attempts were made to establish an organisation called the Australian Domain Name Administration (ADNA), but these were unsuccessful. In November 1999, however, Robert Elz delegated the authority for .com.au to a newly-formed not-for-profit company, .au Domain Administration (AuDA).

AuDA attracted broad (although not complete) acceptance within the Internet industry and community. It also gained governmental support. The Commonwealth has power under s.474 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 to "determine that ... a specified person or association is the declared manager of electronic addressing in relation to a specified kind of listed carriage service", which may (or may not) enable it to anoint a registrar of the .au domain.

Having formulated its key policy statements, auDA approached ICANN in June 2001, seeking the transfer of the delegation for .au from Robert Elz to AuDA. There were considerable misgivings among some of the participants. Not least among these were concerns expressed by Robert Elz to IANA that auDA was not sufficiently representative of the wide range of constituencies. Nonetheless, auDA gained the support of IANA. Redelegation of a ccTLD requires consensus between old and new registrars, except "where there is misconduct, or violation of the policies set forth in this document and RFC 1591, or persistent, recurring problems with the proper operation of a domain" (IETF 1994). ICANN ignored that requirement, and asserted that it had the authority to re-assign the responsibility for .au, without any consensus having been established, and without so much as a policy document to support its actions (Froomkin 2001).

The transfer was effected on 25 October 2001. Between mid-2001 and mid-2002, auDA progressively gained re-delegations for the other four 'open' domains from their longstanding (and long-suffering) volunteer registrars. Since then, auDA has had the authority to administer the whole .au name-space. It performs some functions itself, including the letting of contracts for the operation of databases, the setting of policies in relation to the accreditation of registrars, the delegation of authority over 2LDs, and the requirements of an applicant for a domain-name within each of the 'open' 2LDs. For a comprehensive review of developments to mid-2002, see Johnston (2002).

On 1 July 2002, auDA put a new set of arrangements came into place. It has appointed AusRegistry to operate the databases for the five 'open' 2LDs: com.au, net.au, org.au, asn.au and id.au. These databases contain the mapping information from names to numbers (the DNS registry, used by computers) and information about the registrant of each domain-name (the 'whois' registry, used by people). About 20 accredited retail registrars 'sell domain-names', create new records and amend existing ones, subject to the policies set by auDA.

Of the 'closed' 2LDs, two are particularly important. Firstly, federal, state and local government bodies use the gov.au domain. The National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) acts as registrar, delegating to State and Territory agencies for the sub-domains such as nsw.gov.au. This was also run by Geoff Huston, in this case from 1993 until 1998. Secondly, educational institutions registered at federal or state level use the edu.au domain. Geoff Huston performed the registrar's role from 1993, and passed it to AuDA in February 2001. AuDA finally completed negotiations and passed policy control to a sectoral coordinating committee (AICTEC) and the registrar function to a Ministerial company, education.au Limited, in June 2003.

That was the final step in the migration of the administration of the .au name-space from 'cooperative engineering utility' to an incorporated organisation with a constitution that endeavours to reflect the enormous breadth of the constituency. The journey had taken a little over 17 years.

 

[DomainNames]

http://www.iana.org/reports/2001/au-report-31aug01.html
"Internet names increasingly have commercial value" so that decisions about DNS policies and structure "cannot be made on an ad hoc basis by entities or individuals that are not formally accountable to the Internet community."

http://archive.icann.org/en/committees/gac/gac-cctldprinciples-23feb00.htm
Melbourne IT, a major stakeholder in the Australian Internet community and operator of the principal registry (.com.au) within the .au ccTLD, also expressed concern that auDA is a new, untested organization that may not prove effective in broadly representing all parts of the Internet community. Both Mr. Elz and Melbourne IT suggested that the management of the .au ccTLD would more appropriately be performed directly by the Australian Government.

The Government's ongoing endorsement is subject to auDA continuing to meet [stated criteria including inclusiveness of, and accountability to, the Australian Internet community] as well as operating within the provisions of its company constitution and recognizing that the management and administration of the au ccTLD is subject to the ultimate authority of the Commonwealth of Australia. Should the situation arise whereby auDA was no longer administering the .au ccTLD for the benefit of the Australian community, the Government would take the appropriate action to remedy this situation, and has the legislative authority to do so.
.......the Government's commitments that it will ensure that auDA operates in an open, transparent, inclusive, and representative way.

 

[Bacon Farmer]

This exact scenario was recently played out in the UK.

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2013/dailyposts/20131121.htm

And now the same bullshit is being played out here. Most of our laws originate from the UK and for the panel to claim current holders of .com.au's should have no rights to the new .au's is absolute biased bullshit.

Given the UK and NZ handling of rights, I call upon the panel members who claim the principle of no hierarchy of rights is correct to explain themselves and to declare if they stand to benefit if it comes to fruition.

 

[DomainNames]

This exact scenario was recently played out in the UK.

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2013/dailyposts/20131121.htm

And now the same bullshit is being played out here. Most of our laws originate from the UK and for the panel to claim current holders of .com.au's should have no rights to the new .au's is absolute biased bullshit.

Given the UK and NZ handling of rights, I call upon the panel members who claim the principle of no hierarchy of rights is correct to explain themselves and to declare if they stand to benefit if it comes to fruition.

Very good story but many additional important facts for Australia are important.

• Anyone could register a .co.uk name & buy and sell it whenever they wanted
• There was never an auction of domain names by the administrator
• There was never a need for people to have registered company, business name or trademark expenses to buy the domain name
• From day anyone could buy as many .co.uk names as you wanted. This kept down many start up businesses costs, red tape and less legal, policy and domain name disputes
  
• In Australia you had to have 1 name only ($140 via Melbourne IT only plus $140 each 2 years for renewals) per company, business name or trademark and the name had to be a direct version of the company, business name or trademark or an abbreviated version ( but not 1 word generic allowed... until Auda decided to auction the generic 1 word names...)

 

[DomainNames]

• If you had a .co.uk name and wanted to sell it you could easily and the remainder of the registration period was transferable. meaning the seller or the buyer did not need to pay again for a new domain name " license" or COR Change of Registrant ( as you have to for .com.au and .net.au still... more red tape, more small business paperwork, more admin time and resources... more $ costs... more domain registration or COR income for registrars & their resellers and affiliates example...http://support.melbourneit.com.au/articles/help/Transfer-ownership-au-domain/?fs=Search " Please allow a time frame of between four and six weeks for processing once the form is submitted....I AUTHORISE MELBOURNE IT LTD TO DEDUCT AUD$339.00 INC GST FROM MY CREDIT CARD")