Melbourne IT is pushing for fewer restrictions on the domain name .au , which administrators believe is a move to gain market edge over competition before it arrives next year.
The company responsible for registering Australian domain names has made a submission to the Australian domain administration (auDA) - as part of a "public consultation report" - urging the administrator to remove a number of restrictions on the .au domain name space.
These include regulations on companies registering multiple domain names, derivative names from their trading name and generic and geographic domain names.
Submissions to the review are currently being considered by the Name Policy Advisory Panel as part of the public consultation process.
"If the panel proposes that multiple domain names should be available, if there is a consensus on that issue, it should happen now," Melbourne IT Manager Policy Implementation Jan Webster told ZDNet.
However, auDA CEO Chris Disspain said, "to be pushing us to make changes now is not helpful, especially when everybody knows there is a process in place."
"Change would only benefit those companies existing in the domain space now."
Currently, the auDA has in place a Competition Model Advisory Panel to ensure competition in the provision of domain names in the .au space, which would end the monopoly currently held by Melbourne IT in the marketplace.
According to Disspain, the final report will be released in June next year, and new competition will be in place in October 2001.
Disspain is not disregarding the changes that Melbourne IT is proposing, saying the "public would be delighted."
If however, the policy is changed before competition is in place, Melbourne IT would have free reign to the .au domain space before the competition does, which according to Disspain, "doesn't seem fair."
"No changes in policy will be issued until the names panel produces the final report, and this may only be when competition is in place," Disspain said.
Melbourne IT believes that the policy in place is problematic.
"A lot of people believe restrictions should stay in place. We believe it should be loosened", Webster said.
