The problem was brought to the fore again as a war of words erupted between Stephen Mayne, who runs the online news site Crikey.com.au, and another Australian, Martin Hallier, who recently purchased the crikey.com domain name.
Although Hallier claims he has no intention of riding on the coat-tails of the well-known Australian political news and comment site, other examples exist of deliberate copying of Web sites for illicit gain. Last year the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission filed charges against the owner of www.sydneyopera.org after it mimicked the Australian Opera House Web site, www.sydneyoperahouse.com.au.
Adrian Kinderis, the managing director of sales and marketing for AusRegistry, told ZDNet Australia recognition of the dot-au domain name space was increasing, and by the end of the year he expected that most people would know to go to a dot-au site if they were looking for an Australian Web site.
The dot-au domain space was more valuable than the dot-com domain space because there are more restrictions on applying for a name, according to Kinderis. Anyone can apply for a dot-com name, a fact which has devalued that domain space.
"We are going to spend millions over the [next three years] in educating the Australian public to make sure the au domain space maintains its high value and stays as strong as it has been," said Kinderis.
Kinderis, who sees it as the job of the registry and auDA (the Australian domain name administrator) to market au domains, said the planning process had already started, and would hopefully be finished by mid-February. The planning team consists of marketing consultants and representatives from the registrars.
The results from the planning process should be launched on February 14, according to Kinderis, and will run for the length of AusRegistry's tender - till July 1 2006. AusRegistry will also communicate closely with auDA, to make sure they do not overlap with the recently announced auDA Foundation to improve the utility of the Internet.
According to Kinderis, the dot-au domain space is already picking up, and now has more than 310,000 domains registered. "It's more often that not you see a .com.au rather than a .com," he said, "in fact it's a shock when you see a .com."
This is borne out by large multi-nationals who open local portals in the au space, the most recent being Google.com.au. Kinderis pointed out that while the dot-com space and other global top-level domains were contracting, the au space was expanding.
"People are really keen on au names and want to be represented that way on the net," said Kinderis.
Stephen Mayne is the cybersquatter, not the cybersquatted.
He owned the jeffed.com website in 1998 (note the lack of a ".au" on the end).
He was unable to register crikey.com in 1998/9 because it had been registered in 1997. Instead Mayne traded on the coattails of the name by taking up the .com.au version.
he has not claims on crikey and has no trademark, a fact seen by a perusal of IP Australia's database of tradenames.
Stephen Mayne is a charlatan and a fraud and should be exposed as one!