In 2002, auDA -- .au Domain Administration -- introduced the "close and substantial connection rule", which allowed companies to register domain names that, although not derived from their own company or business name, are connected to their business in some way. For example, it would be acceptable for a real estate directory service to register names such as houses.com.au, apartments.com.au, land.com.au, estateagent.com.au.
However, on Friday, auDA issued a statement saying it is considering changing the rule after some companies were found to be "using this interpretation of the close and substantial connection rule to register large numbers of domain names apparently for the primary purpose of capturing Web traffic and/or selling click-through advertising".
"auDA is currently considering whether this practice is acceptable under the close and substantial connection rule. Until auDA has issued a policy clarification, registrants who engage in this practice should be aware that auDA reserves the right to delete the domain names for breach of policy," the statement said.
auDA's chief executive Chris Disspain recently defended the system by which popular domain names are allocated after extensive complaints on discussion lists over the fact several companies linked to an individual had scooped up several prime geographic domains in a recent ballot.
Disspain said he could "absolutely guarantee" the integrity of the system for randomly allocating commercial domains. "We've looked at it, and checked it, and there's nothing untoward going on," he said.
During a recent ballot of names associated with geographic destinations, one company, Aussie Destinations Pty Ltd, registered the most-popular domain in the ballot, perth.com.au, in competition with hundreds of other applicants. The company also managed to win the newcastle.com.au, darwin.com.au, casino.com.au and airliebeach.com.au domains. Aussie Destinations is owned by Jeff Marr, who runs Online Referral Networks Australia and the site personalinjurylawyers.com.au.
"What are the odds of winning 25 percent of the top 20 most sought after domains -- many of which had around 100 applications?" asked one member of a domain list.
While not wishing to comment on individual winners, Disspain said some entrants had established multiple businesses in order to increase the number of applications they could make.
Disspain said the rules of the ballot had been one entry per legal entity: "A company is a separate legal entity, so each can lodge an application... but 27 different companies...could put in 27 applications for one domain... That is one way of increasing one's chances".
It was also "entirely possible", according to Disspain, that a company that won a domain could transfer it to a sister company for registration.
Some entrants had won more domain names than Aussie Destinations in the ballot because the domains they had bid for had not been popular: "There were a lot of names for which only one application was received," said Disspain.
According to a recent posting on the same domain list, Marr recently purchased a swathe of domains such as chains.com.au, fork.com.au, cabinets.com.au, breakfast.com.au, buoy.com.au and station.com.au.
This now is fast becoming a joke and the AU space is becoming a farce. If the rules change back to post 2001/2002 rules, people will still find a way of getting around them. It's called Registering a Business name, and can easily be done. So why change?
So what if someone has registered 100's of names. As long as there are web businesses running under neath these names sometime in the future it is all in accordance with the current laws. Laws which should remain.
Business contacts of mine overseas are advising me to stop wasting time in the .au space and move offshore into markets where businesses can establish themselves without the crap that goes on in the .AU space.
Chris Disppain has done a great job in policing the growing the current AU space. If entrpeneurs are willing to invest time and money into properties they should be allowed to do so as long as they can show they are planning to build and develop a web business.
If you are a person who wants to change the laws just thing of this:
1. IT in Australia is dead, why continue beating a dead horse?
2. Developing legitimate web businesses not only provides revenue to the economy, but job growth in the I.T job space that we haven't seen since the late 1990's.
3. The Howard government has forgotten about I.T and Multimedia. Do you know how many trained professional I.T staff are still unemployed? How many recent I.T and Multimedia graduates are unemployed?
4. Australia and the AU space will become a joke.
I've been in the I.T and internet space for 10 years and have seen the boom and the bust and if Australian's don't get rid of that TALL POPPY SYNDROME in the domain space, we are going to see more grief in the near future.
Max