auDA seeks input on domain rules

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 03 April 2007 14:52

Your IT - Home IT

auDA, the policy authority for the .au domain, is conducting an online survey to get input from the general public as part of a policy review.

The 2007 Names Policy Panel has been instructed to consider two issues:

Should .au be opened up to direct registrations (eg. domainname.au)? If yes, should there be any policy rules, and if so what rules?

and

Should the policy rules for asn.au, com.au, id.au, net.au and org.au be changed? If yes, what changes should be made?

Consequently, the online survey (accessible via this auDA web page) starts by gauging people's understanding of the significance of .au domains, who can register them, and how they may be derived.

It goes on to solicit comments on who should be allowed to register names in each second level domain (eg, .com.au), whether the sale of domains should be permitted, and whether direct registrations under .au should be allowed.

The 22 members of the panel (excluding an observer from the federal Department of Communications, IT and the Arts, and the chairperson, Derek Whitehead of Swinburne University) include representatives of at least four registrars, plus others that might be suspected of having a financial interest in maximising the number of registered domains in the .au space.

If you don't take a few minutes to complete the survey, you can't complain later that the panel's eventual recommendations didn't take account of your opinions.