According to Policy Review Committee Chair John Swinson, there are a number of issues that need to be carefully considered before the .au Domain Administration Direct Registration (auDA) policy is implemented. this priority must be determined.
auDA recently announced that it was seeking input on how best to implement the domain name registration policy directly before the dot in .au, otherwise known as direct registration.
The auda board had approved direct registration in April 2016.
Swinson told ZDNet that the existing “first come, first served” approach may not be appropriate when implementing the new policy.
“The basic rule about domain names is…if you want a domain name, you see if nobody else has it, and if nobody else has it, you have the right to ‘register this domain name and use it on the condition that you don’t infringe on someone’s intellectual property,’ Swinson said.
“When you introduce something new like .au direct registration, you need to consider the impact of that new domain name on existing domain name owners. [policy] in Australia.
“Say there is johnspizza.com.au and someone else owns johnspizza.net.au, who gets johnspizza.au in this circumstance? Or, say you had a golf club domain name Mona Vale, a Mona Vale Garden Service Domain, and a Mona Vale Public School Domain Who is eligible to get monavale.au?
Additionally, Swinson said auDA is working to better understand whether people should be allowed to register certain domain names such as “court.au” or “police.au”.
“We might want to book a few [domain names] for future use, for example, in law enforcement,” he said.
Whether certain words or alternative spellings of existing words should be banned altogether, such as “au.au”, “com.au”, and “comm.au”, is also a consideration to potentially reduce the risk of confusion.
The auDA has assessed how the UK and New Zealand have implemented a similar policy, Swinson said, but is investigating whether there is a more effective way to do so in Australia.
“I think we can learn from what others have done and do it better in Australia. That’s what I would like to see,” he added.
As well as simplifying domains for businesses with an Australian connection and keeping up with global trends, Swinson said direct registration will provide additional options for those who missed out on their favorite domain names.
“For some names, all the domain names are gone. So if you’re starting a new business, maybe other people have already registered it. There are some words, as you can imagine, that two people or more are legitimately using…it opens it up to allow more possibilities for domain names,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean .com.aus will go away. They’ll still be around, it just creates additional opportunities.”
auDA takes a phased approach to the consultation process, with the second part intended to review and develop the policy rules that apply to the registration of second-level domain names as part of its review of existing policies. .
The Policy Review Committee invites responses to its Thematic document Internet users, including domain name registrants and business owners, by November 10.
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