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The rising popularity of .Com in Australia

Lemon

Top Contributor
It's called a global brand.
More should be invested in promoting .au as a recognised brand in a global marketplace.
Blackbird Ventures
We invest in Australians with big ideas who want to be the best in the world.
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
Because I own the largest domain name retailer outside of the Big 3, and our second most asked question in our sales department is "why can I not register the .au like I can .nz and .uk?".

People want shorter URL's and it is why Big W advertise the .com instead of the .au. It's the same reason why businesses go for 13 numbers and pay the hefty tax because they are easier to remember.

Which big retailers use .uk or .nz?
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
I am doing plenty about it.
You can read about how I would grow the .au namespace on my campaign website. It is clear in black & white.
www.halson.com.au

Ian are you against the proposed competing extra .au extension or not? How about a yes or no?

Don't listen to some at auDA, on the Board, in Supply etc offering you support and votes and saying it is better for you to just give up and go with it...They may not be around in 2018.

FYI I was also promised votes and support from people who fed me the same story they appear to have sold you.....Here are just some of the comments put to me...
  1. " just go with it and let's work on implementation"..
  2. "trust me you will get the .au for the .com.au names you have if you want the option"..
  3. " auDA does not have the resources to contact existing .au registrants"
  4. "Over my dead body will .com.au owners not get the rights to the .au I also have .com.au names myself"
  5. "I can get you votes if you stand...."
  6. "even though auDA has all the money in the bank ( $10 million) it's not enough....."
  7. "With the awesome names you have and their high value you could make a lot of money from it yourself if you also get the .AU version....."
https://halson.com.au/

Testimonials "I believe Ian Halson will make a great Demand Class Director of auDA and I am strongly advising my clients to vote for him. Apart from everything else he stands for, most notably he continues to question the implementation of Direct .au Registrations, agrees that .au should remain a “closed" trusted namespace and is interested in achieving cheaper renewal rates for domain names. Ian has been vocal and involved in the Australian domain name space for over a decade."
Robert Kaay
DBR.com.au: Australia's Leading Domain Name Broker
 

Lemon

Top Contributor
Don't listen to some at auDA, on the Board, in Supply etc offering you support and votes and saying it is better for you to just give up and go with it...They may not be around in 2018.
I find your constant suggestions that I would be influenced by people offering me their vote both offensive and inappropriate.

My sole objective is to grow and make the .au namespace stronger for both supply and demand I think being in the industry for 20 years gives me some understanding on how that can be achieved. And many in the industry would agree with me.
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
I find your constant suggestions that I would be influenced by people offering me their vote both offensive and inappropriate.

I think it just a fact of life, AUDA insiders have gone around offering just about everyone their votes if they will run against Nicole & Ned. God knows who they will actually give the votes to.

It is pretty much the AUDA greeting "Morning Bill, I'll give you all my proxy votes!"
 

Lemon

Top Contributor
I think it just a fact of life, AUDA insiders have gone around offering just about everyone their votes if they will run against Nicole & Ned. God knows who they will actually give the votes to.
Every member has the right to vote for who they want. We all know who Ned and Nicole are voting for.
My vote is based on who I think will be the most beneficial to the .au namespace and the industry.
It is not based on personal agendas or personality contests.
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
Every member has the right to vote for who they want. We all know who Ned and Nicole are voting for.
My vote is based on who I think will be the most beneficial to the .au namespace and the industry.
It is not based on personal agendas or personality contests.

You seem to be talking about something else.

What I am saying AUDA insiders have gone around promising proxy votes to numerous people (dntrade members) if they will run. It was an attempt to try and dilute the domainer/small business vote (i.e. to split it up into numerous candidates) and get their own supply friendly directors voted in.
 

Cheyne

Top Contributor
Which big retailers use .uk or .nz?
Argos, Apple, Netflix, all use .uk.

The point you're continuing to miss is that .co.nz and .co.uk are the incumbents and have been around since the internet started in these countries. The same stands to reason with .com.au. You cannot expect extensions that have only been around for a handful of years to have the same impact as those that have been around for more than 30 years.

Telstra currently holds 75% of the total number of 25Mbit NBN customers, yet they are known for terrible customer support, low bandwidth allowances and slow speeds.

The internet is literally running out of IPv4 addresses, yet IPv6 is still not readily available.

When something is incumbent people will slowly look to see what else is available, and when talking .au compared to the rest then why be one of the only major ccTLD's in the world that doesn't have direct registration, only to look back in 10 or 20 years time when others are popular and wonder why we didn't do it back then.

We have the slowest internet in the world. We are one of the last developed countries to legalise same-sex marriage. I want to be ahead of the curve for once and despite the naysayers who look abroad for their negative predictions I'd like to be able to say that we did it better - and we will.
 

Cheyne

Top Contributor
Google search for "apple" with UK as the location.

BigW.com redirects to BigW.com.au. It even says in the search box "search bigw.com.au". They only use the .com for advertising, because like I said people remember short URL's.

All of those places hold .uk domains that redirect just like your example of BigW.

Multinationals like technology, media, airlines, etc, all use .com/country because it's a globally distributed platform but they use local redirects.
 

Lemon

Top Contributor
What I am saying AUDA insiders have gone around promising proxy votes to numerous people (dntrade members) if they will run. It was an attempt to try and dilute the domainer/small business vote (i.e. to split it up into numerous candidates) and get their own supply friendly directors voted in.
Are you talking about Sean.
Sean has the right to stand for election if he is so inclined. He has an opinion on how auDA should be run and has a right to that opinion and a right to stand. Maybe he would have been elected.
What happened is that he was pressured into not standing for election by his peers.
 

snoopy

Top Contributor
All of those places hold .uk domains that redirect just like your example of BigW.

The difference is BigW looks to be moving to the .com, they have recently started advertising it in catalogs where they used to advertise the .com.au.

Your examples of .uk redirects hold no weight, apple also has a redirect on apple.info, is that good news for .info? Come back with genuine examples.
 

Cheyne

Top Contributor
What I am saying AUDA insiders have gone around promising proxy votes to numerous people (dntrade members) if they will run. It was an attempt to try and dilute the domainer/small business vote (i.e. to split it up into numerous candidates) and get their own supply friendly directors voted in.

Since you've offered no proof only theory I cannot say for certain if what you are saying is true, however it is for this and other similar reasons why Angelo Giuffrida (our CEO) did not nominate for supply this year.

There is far too much politics going on for him to be an effective voice and he doesn't want to waste his time when it is clear that there are agendas at play that he (and myself, and our company as a whole) want no part of.
 

Cheyne

Top Contributor
Your examples of .uk redirects hold no weight, apple also has a redirect on apple.info, is that good news for .info? Come back with genuine examples.

There have been quite a lot of .sydney and .melbourne URL's being used in ads on TV and radio in recent months. I guess you're also going to say that nobody uses them either?

In the end .com will always be the global dominant extension because it was first to hit mainstream. Everything else is fodder but that doesn't meant we shouldn't be keeping up with the rest of the world.
 

findtim

Top Contributor
People want URL's to be shorter
so lets ask them, all of them !
Telstra currently holds 75% of the total number of 25Mbit NBN customers
and they just said they would switch off my 80yr old mothers phone if she didn't convert to nbn because her phone line is no longer available, which cost her $300 to upgrade her home alarm.
I want to be ahead of the curve for once
great, so lets do what australia has always done, " get rid of the old" , we don't need 2, delete the .com.au and move to only .au, give the ,au to the .com.au owner, create a transition period of X years and "be ahead of the curve" in our thinking instead of being sheep and following failed systems like nz and uk,
we no longer have miles, pounds, pence or analogue mobiles, we soon will no longer have adsl i suspect, so whats new?

if you do the above you solve the .net.au issues, stop legal/trademark issues, forget about longevity and the whole thing could be solved by tomorrow arvo.

just a thought, its all to simple isn't it !!!

disclaimer: i am an auda director and the words above are my own as tim connell and do not reflect on my position, and all that other mumbo jumbo you have to say !
 

DomainNames

Top Contributor
Argos, Apple, Netflix, all use .uk.

The point you're continuing to miss is that .co.nz and .co.uk are the incumbents and have been around since the internet started in these countries. The same stands to reason with .com.au. You cannot expect extensions that have only been around for a handful of years to have the same impact as those that have been around for more than 30 years.

Telstra currently holds 75% of the total number of 25Mbit NBN customers, yet they are known for terrible customer support, low bandwidth allowances and slow speeds.

The internet is literally running out of IPv4 addresses, yet IPv6 is still not readily available.

When something is incumbent people will slowly look to see what else is available, and when talking .au compared to the rest then why be one of the only major ccTLD's in the world that doesn't have direct registration, only to look back in 10 or 20 years time when others are popular and wonder why we didn't do it back then.

We have the slowest internet in the world. We are one of the last developed countries to legalise same-sex marriage. I want to be ahead of the curve for once and despite the naysayers who look abroad for their negative predictions I'd like to be able to say that we did it better - and we will.

Are you joking us?

Please do not try to mislead people those companies have chosen to use the .uk version as their main website or for branding etc. They have not..

What they did was purely defensive registrations and URL redirect. They are NOT using the .uk version for anything else.

But lets be up front as long as registrars make money from defensive registrations they will push for more extensions

There are now over 1000 global extensions and more every year. Icann, Registry, Registrars are diluting the market and create a lot of crap... why the shotgun effect.. more extensions means more money for them... "F. U." to the actual domain name owner with a website they want to protect and brand.

With nearly 20 years in the UK market also I would stack up my person experience against anyone who claims can prove anything different...

FOLLOW THE MONEY
www.argos.uk where does it go? www.Argos.co.uk
www.apple.uk where does it go to www.Apple.com
www.netflix uk where does it go to www.Netflix.com
 

eBranding.com.au

Top Contributor
Because I own the largest domain name retailer outside of the Big 3, and our second most asked question in our sales department is "why can I not register the .au like I can .nz and .uk?".
Argos, Apple, Netflix, all use .uk.
For a start, none of those examples are using 'domain.uk' (the direct registration option). The only one that's actually using a ccTLD has opted for 'domain.co.uk', not the direct registration option ('domain.uk'). Businesses in the UK and NZ are overwhelmingly using the ccTLD options that already existed prior to the introduction of direct registration.

In the UK, as in NZ, very few businesses are actually using the direct registration option. It's now been some years since they introduced direct registration in those countries, and the vast majority have stuck with .co.uk and .co.nz. It will be no different in Australia.

apple.co.uk (and apple.uk) redirects to the .com.

netflix.co.uk (and netflix.uk) redirects to the .com.

argos.uk is forwarding to argos.co.uk. They're just paying additional registration fees to protect their brand.
 
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