auDA wresting control of org.au and id.au second-level domain names from industry personality Robert Elz has been met with support from an industry desperately fighting to clean up its image with users.

auDa has assumed both technical and administrative responsibility for org.au and id.au names. This will mean that both the registration and re-delegation services which had previously been managed by Elz now come under the control of auDA.

Chris Disspain, CEO at .au Domain Administration (auDA), said that org.au and id.au were part of the package which went out to tender on the recommendation of the Names Panel, which meant that all of the second-level domain names were supposed to come under auDA's control.

Last September international organiation ICANN also recognised auDA as the most suitable operator of .au domain names, transferring control of au domain names to the organisation.

Disspain said auDA contacted Elz about six months ago regarding org.au and id.au. Following this, the organisation formally gave Elz 60-days notice in November, to which it had not received a response.

Although industry pundits express respect for the work Elz has done for the Internet industry in Australia, those contacted by ZDNet Australia were positive about auDA taking over control over management of org.au and id.au domain names.

Larry Bloch, CEO at domain name and Web hosting company NetRegistry, was in favour of the greater accountability the move provided.

Bloch said that it had stopped offering org.au to its customers because of ongoing problems some of NetRegistry's clients had had with the second-level domain name. He is hoping the company will now be able to look at reversing this decision.

-Broadly speaking, I think it's a very good move," Bloch said. -I expect it to be of benefit to all of the frustrated organisations that have been tearing their hair out getting an appropriate domain name."

Bloch believes the last six months, and this year, are an exciting time for the domain name industry, describing it as a coming of age.

Mark Spektor, co-general manager at Internet Name Group (ING), which has been provisionally accredited as a registrar in the .au domain name space, also thinks the move is a positive one.

-I think that if we're going to have second-level domains they should be managed by one body," Spektor said.

Spektor also believed that the move would benefit consumers, through increased awareness in the marketplace about what these domain names were.

Unable to be reached for comment at time of going to press, Robert Elz is known in the industry as being elusive. People who have met him describe Elz as an eccentric man who typically shies away from contact with the media. According to auDA, Elz had managed the org.au and id.au domain names for the past 15 years on a voluntary basis.

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