Aust buyers show little interest in domain names - News - Business

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Aust buyers show little interest in domain names

By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
October 01, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Aust-buyers-show-little-interest-in-domain-names/0,139023166,120268703,00.htm

In an indication of the demise of interest in the Internet, an auction of generic .au domain names has received only moderate interest from prospective buyers.

Only 54 percent of generic .au domain names offered for auction this year were sold, and most of those went for the minimum reserve price of AU$100, domain name administrator auDA declared today.

The generic domain name auction was announced last year to allocate domain names that were previously off-limits. According to auDA, the auction raised approximately AU$2,611,000, with the highest price being AU$153,000 for www.flowers.com.au, which was bid by Flourish Network, an affiliation of Australian and International Florists.

Of the money raised auDA has allocated AU$780,000 for tax purposes and AU$500,000 as a 'contingency fund'. The rest has been earmarked to fund the proposed 'auDA foundation', the purpose of which will be to enhance the utility of the Internet through sponsorship of education and community projects. The details have not been finalised, with a sub-committee expected to provide a report to the board at the October 2002 meeting.

The unallocated names have been published on the auDA site, and become available at 11.00 am Thursday on a first-come first-serve basis.