Announcing the deal, the Australian domain regulator, .au Domain Administration (auDA), said further information about the process under which the contract was awarded would be available once an agreement between it and AusRegistry had been signed.
That contract -- known as the Registry Licence Agreement -- sets the terms under which AusRegistry administers second-level domains (such as .com.au and .gov.au).
Under the deal, AusRegistry will provide services for 17 domains in the .au space. These include popular domains such as .com.au and .edu.au, plus eight new state domains like .nsw.au and .vic.au, which will be available by the end of the year.
More than 500,000 .au domains are in existence, the vast majority with the .com.au prefix. AusRegistry is the first commercial provider of registry services in Australia, having commenced operations in 2000 as a domain name seller.
