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snoopy

Top Contributor
BIG NEWS

1. At the auDA AGM today Cameron Boardman stated the proposed additional .au extension can be stopped if the new auDA board votes against it.

2. Registry will have to go to tender.

Was anything said about the .com.au registry? (which shouldn't just be getting extended)

Regarding .au because of Ausregistry's degree of influence over AUDA I think the risk is that a tender process for .au may not mean much.

Agree that a complete review needs to occur rather than just another vote, i.e. real consultation with those effected, proper notice to all registrants. A decision like that (the most significant change AUDA has ever proposed) shouldn't just be vote based on 11 people and a report written by some of the same people.
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
Was anything said about the .com.au registry? (which shouldn't just be getting extended)

Regarding .au because of Ausregistry's degree of influence over AUDA I think the risk is that a tender process for .au may not mean much.

Agree that a complete review needs to occur rather than just another vote, i.e. real consultation with those effected, proper notice to all registrants. A decision like that (the most significant change AUDA has ever proposed) shouldn't just be vote based on 11 people and a report written by some of the same people.

Ausregistry may have have lodged a fairly in detail request to remain the registrar and for it not to go to tender....Of course they can try this again since it worked twice under the old auDA management.

I do hope the new auDA management do not fall for it again and it does go to public tender. Ausregistry have not been "innovative" since they started. They probably thought they didn't need to with the old auDA people in charge?

Now Ausregistry will have to lift their game and stop their self interest.

Australia can always find another registrar or I have been told Department of Communications could even be a back up registrar with very little downtime and proven security, resources, equipment, staff already in place.

Innovation for a registry is not just a sales pitch from ausregistry to make more profits for their own benefit. lets stop falling for the "innovation" from a company who has never offered it but know it is a catchy term nowdays to use.
https://www.ausregistry.com.au/product-innovation-will-produce-the-next-3-million-au-domains/

Innovation is:

  • free domain lockdown
  • free COR
  • better promoting of the .com.au and .net.au globally. What has Ausregistry really done to increase the value and status of .com.au and .net.au globally? Their push for another competing .au extension is detrimental to what has been built already! By promoting the proposed new .au will be better than .com.au they are hurting $billion of dollars of Australian investment, Australian business and critical infrastructure.
  • improving security
  • less red tape for registrants
  • free SSL, Hosting etc
  • buy 1 get one free. buy.com.au get the .net.au free if it is available. Other registries offer this. Ausregistry has offered nothing like it ever. Nor has auDA
  • lower wholesale prices
  • 1 year to 10 year registration options. Escalating wholesale discounts for longer periods paid for up front.
  • No close and substantial rules
  • Documented DDOS penetration testing report each month provided to auDA
  • Their proposal what they offer domain name registrants
  • evidence profits remain in Australia and not sent offshore, staff are Australian and the company benefits Australia
  • all conflicts of interests disclosed publicly on marketing information , survey solicitations, voting, magazines, press releases, case studies etc etc
  • The list goes on
  • The answer is not to try and make people buy another competing .au extension. ausregistry may have shot themselves in the foot with this one since they quoted we would just follow the uk and nz. Now we have the UK and NZ 2015/2016 domain registration, renewal and drop off results we now that would be a serious mistake.
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
There are seemingly a lot of skeletons in the auDA and other entities closet coming out ...auDA Foundation, auGIF, etc, lots of audits exposing issues, service providers and advertising being cancelled....has anyone left the country? Why?
 

findtim

Top Contributor
It was said it would be going to a selective tender.
yep, it was said they didn't want a mountain of applications and wanted to investigate who would best suit the industry, no number was mentioned but i got the impression less then 5.
tim
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
It was said it would be going to a selective tender.
I must have heard differently What was said was an "open" tender which is different and preferable to a "selective" tender. This was emphasised by several people at the meeting.

It is to the benefit of auDA and Australia that is is open. auDA can then see what registrars are truly offering and it will make their proposals far more competitive.
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
Australia, auDA, Board members etc should look closely at the UK and NZ failed results so far.

People may with to look at the top 20,000 United Kingdom websites for search results and try to find the first direct .uk website name if you can find it at all?

https://domaintyper.com/top-websites/most-popular-websites-with-uk-domain/page/1

After several years of being available for .uk registration most registrants and companies in UK 94% have not even registered the shorter "direct" .uk version of their .co.uk name.

If it was such a great opportunity, less clicks, better for advertising, more memorable etc etc etc do people not think they would have at least registered it and url forwarded it to their existing name? They haven't and to these companies they could easily pay the reg fee.
  • Coca-Cola.co.uk Registered , Coca-Cola.uk Not Registered
  • Mercedes-Benz.co.uk Registered, Mercedes-Benz.uk Not Registered
  • Nissan.co.uk Registered, Nissan.uk Not Registered
the list goes on for millions of examples
 

Rhythm

Top Contributor
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
It was said it would be going to a selective tender.

If AUDA truly wants to be seen as a "transparent organisation" they need to cut out nonsense like this. They'd be better off wading through that mountain of applications and at least having some credibility instead of giving it to Ausregistry on a silver platter. If anything Ausregistry should not be considered for any contract on the the basis that it would be anti competitive to have them keeping their monopoly on all Australian registry operations. I don't think domain buyers want more years of overpriced registrations.

Still the main thing at the moment is that it should not go ahead at all.
 

findtim

Top Contributor
ooh, the way i heard it was it was a tender for registry of all extensions, the tender would be held off until the .au was confirmed or not, as it was mentioned that a board can overwrite a previous board decision, then no real specifics as to what that meant although deloittes was mentioned in the broader discussion.
what i am sure off is that different people would have heard the same words and come to a different conclusion.
I hope the minutes are informative so everyone can make their own judgement on what was said.

tim
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
ooh, the way i heard it was it was a tender for registry of all extensions, the tender would be held off until the .au was confirmed or not, as it was mentioned that a board can overwrite a previous board decision, then no real specifics as to what that meant although deloittes was mentioned in the broader discussion.
what i am sure off is that different people would have heard the same words and come to a different conclusion.
I hope the minutes are informative so everyone can make their own judgement on what was said.

tim

Cheers Tim.

I think it would be a bad outcome if it were all packaged up together, essentially it sounds like an easy way to give Ausregistry an even bigger monopoly, especially with a "selective" tender, we all know who they want to select. I doubt there is a real technical reason why .au and .com.au would need to be together (but I'm sure Ausregistry can think up reasons why).

For example .edu.au and .gov.au from what have read used to be run by a different registry (a govt department?)

In 2001, the auDA called a tender for the implementation of a secure and streamlined registry system for 5 key .au registries - .com.au, .net.au, .org.au, .asn.au and .id.au.

AusRegistry was the successful bidder and remains the Registry Operator today after winning a second four year period and a series of extensions of its .AU registry license agreement. AusRegistry also now manages the restricted Australian government (.gov.au) and education names (.edu.au).

i.e. it sounds like the contract initially was only the 5 registries.

http://www.domainregistration.com.au/infocentre/info-au-history.php
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
i heard "selective" tender
tim

The point that was made at the AGM was it would be an "open tender" not "selective tender". I might be someone in the position to know what was asked and what was trying to be clarified. Anyway "open tender" is what is needed.

A "selective" tender means auDA could just invite Ausregistry only which is not the purpose or in the best interests of anyone except Ausregistry.
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
Worth reading http://searchengineland.com/what-new-icann-domain-names-mean-google-rankings-seo-82468
" What The New ICANN Domain Names Mean For Google Rankings & SEO: Nothing
Danny Sullivan
on June 20, 2011 at 12:50 pm

ICANN – the organization in charge of internet domain names – has approved plans that may create hundreds or thousands of new “top level domain names.” I’ve seen some reports already that this will help with search engine optimization. It won’t. It’ll just enrich some new TLD owners at the expense of brands who will now spend even more to fight cybersquatting.

The New Domain Names Are Coming
ICANN is the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers, and it oversees the world’s domain name system. In its wisdom, it decided yesterday that the 22 generic top level domain (gTLD) names we have at the moment — things like .com, .org and .net — aren’t enough. More are needed.

ICANN doesn’t have anything up in its news section or its blog on this yet, but within its press room area, there’s a news release (PDF format) with more details, which in turn leads to a helpful fact sheet (also PDF).

Winners & Losers
For $185,000, businesses or organizations can apply for to run their own gTLD. If Apple, Google or Facebook wanted to have .apple, .google and .facebook names, that now becomes possible. That could be pretty cool for companies that want to have domain names that fully reflect their own brands.

Of course, not everyone will necessarily be granted a top level domain name. Who gets lucky depends on what ICANN decides. Smaller brands — which are brands nonetheless — won’t be able to afford the names. Who gets to have hot generic names like .money or .tickets will be decided, to my understanding, solely by ICANN.

What happens when two companies with the same trademark both decide they want the same top level domain remains to be seen. Who gets to be .giants — the San Francisco Giants baseball team or the New York Giants football team. Maybe they could play each other. And those are the only organizations out there with a claim to the Giants name, right?

Domain Names & SEO
In terms of search engines and SEO, so far, I haven’t seen ICANN itself say anything directly about how the new names might be helpful. But my experience in watching the release of longer 63-character domain names back in in 1999, as well as the release new names in the 2000s such as .biz and .mobi, tells me that others will soon be making all types of SEO claims about the new names.

Bottom line — the new names will almost certainly mean nothing special to search engines. They won’t have any super ranking powers. If you managed to get .money, that doesn’t mean you’ll rank tops for money-related terms any more than people with the existing .travel domains do well for travel — because they don’t.

Go do a search for “travel” now or any popular travel-related term on Google. Count the number of times you see sites coming up with .travel in their domain name. You won’t need more than one hand. You probably one need more than one finger. You probably won’t need any fingers at all.

Search engines like Google and Bing give no particular credit or boost to generic top level domain names in general. They don’t say, “Hmm, .com — that’s more important than .net, give it a boost.” They don’t say “Hmm, .travel, boost any site with that over other travel sites.”

Search engines do use country-specific domain names, when these can be trusted, as a signal for making content tailored to a particular country. Many UK web sites use the .uk domain. It’s a trust worthy signal.

In contrast, many non-Libyan or non-Tuvalu businesses make use of the .ly and .tv domain names intended for those countries. As a result, those are a less-trustworthy signal of whether a site is from those countries. That’s why other signals such as links have to be used.

So the new domain names? Sites will do well with them not because they have a tasty top level domain like “.travel” but because particular sites might get enough links and other signals pointing at them to do well.

In the end, the domain names do present new opportunities for some businesses. A few companies are going to get very rich off of this. Some are going to wonder if they need to buy their names again with all these new spaces to avoid cybersquatting.

But from an SEO perspective, be calm. Having a new name won’t rocket you to success; not having
 

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