auDA, the Australian Domain Name regulator, has given notice to NetRegistry that it intends to publicly cite NetRegistry for a .AU Domain Name Policy. NetRegistry has refused to comply with auDA's directives to delete two domain names, which the reistrar says it is doing to highlight the arbitrary and subjective nature of auDA's decisions and to support domain name buyers who demand the right to decide the best domain name for their businesses.

According to Netregistry, a cut price registrar, it registered 30% of all.com.au domains in Australia during the month of May and claims to have overtaken Melbourne IT as the number one registrar.

According to Netregistry, as part of the recent release of two letter domain names, NetRegistry registered the ws.net.au and bs.net.au to DomoWeb (http://www.domoweb.com), a business that provides web site development and services.

auDA has reviewed the registrations and has rejected the registrant's claim that the names are a close and substantial match to his business. The two names were for websites; the first promoting Web Services (ws.net.au) and the other promoting Business Systems (bs.net.au).

"NetRegistry disputes auDA's interpretation of their own policy rules. We feel its findings in this matter are yet again arbitrary, petty and arrogant," says Larry Bloch, CEO of NetRegistry. "We have decided to refuse to comply with auDA's request that we delete these names to highlight the abuse of our customers' rights to the names they want. To our knowledge, auDA has not received a complaint or a competing claim for these names. They are acting 100% arbitrarily," says Bloch.

"With decisions like this, Australia is becoming a nation where a certificate of registration for a domain name means nothing, where a domain name applied for, approved and paid for can still be taken away. This is unacceptable to any business owner.

"I hereby publicly call on auDA to reverse its decision, to reinstate the names to our customer and to put in place a suitable process to appeal their arbitrary decisions."

We got this story too late to contact auDA today but will endeavour to get a response as soon as possible. {moscomment}