PerthNorg

What's in a name? A lot if it ends in .au

What’s in a name? A lot of it’s an .au domain name. Anyone who has gone to register an Australian domain name would be surprised at the process when compared to the registering a .com one.

The situation in Australia has been that, in order to have your application approved, you have to have either an ABN or ACN and prove that you have some interest in obtaining the .au name.

But that is all about to be reviewed with Communications Minister Helen Coonan launching a review into the policy which was recommended in April this year in the Report of the Taskforce on Reducing Regulatory Burdens on Business.

A lot of red tape does exist surrounding the .au registrations. In part this has been done to protect Australian businesses who have a rightful claim to a name from becoming victims of cybersquatters.

When making the announcement Coonan noted that the .au domain registration has been operating for five years under a self-regulatory model – meaning Under the current domain name regulatory model domains are administered by auDA a private entity with statutory authority to implement government policy.

But times have changed in that five years, and the internet has become a more significant player in that time.

So what do businesses think about the current model – better to have a safe restrictive one or a less controlled one open to possible problems like they’ve had in the US?