.net.au, what to do with it?????

[findtim]

its the one thing i can't seem to solve if/when .au arrives, problems i face are:
longevity, what if .net.au was registered before the .com.au ever was ?
.com.au drops:this is an expired domain, so does its longevity start from the new registration date or the original registration date ?
competing for .au: how does a .net.au owner who has come "2nd in the race" have any right to a .au ?
speculator rego: what if someone registers today a .net.au specifically to have a chance at the .au? is there a cut off point?
cut off: there will need to be 2 cut off points, one to weed out speculators? which could be any date in the past prior to recent the auda announcement, or even prior to the names panel creation ??? , and a cut off point once fully decided and announced.
legals: a precedent, if not MANY ......will need to be $et, but only after you have to pay to fight your ca$e..
mediation: would auda provide such a service? which could cause a huge long waiting list.
value: surely depending on certain decisions .net.au values could go further through the floor.

thats just a start, i'm sure there are more.

tim

 

[Erwin]

These are all great questions, and ones I ask myself. I hope auDA consultation together with others should help address these important issues.

Whatever choice auDA makes it must be for the greater good of the namespace, (how I interperate this to be is .com.au have prescedence, followed by .net.au followed by general availability after a set timeframe- this to allow business awareness & implementation of .au) I've no idea wether a cut of period is fair.. hmmm

 

[findtim]

to clarify "cut off", they are both dependant on the longevity decision in my view.
the first one is so speculators now will under ALL circumstances have to wait until the .au goes to open registration in X years (longer the better)
second is for when it becomes newsworthy and more people find out about it and should have no right to make claim for .au , because as we know auda will most likely not tell anyone about it so the newspaper/tv/radio will be the only indication for most people and opportunists may enter the market on a equal claim basis.
+ "yesterdays newspaper = todays fish and chips paper"
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i think it has been long enough now for auda to have emailed every owner of a domain about the potential pending change, the fact they haven't is a clear indication of their intention not to do so IMHO.
----------------
tim

 

[Horshack]

There's no hierarchy of rights so it's a no brainer really. The NZ option or a modified version looks to be the only way to go. Maybe an auction between conflicted holders so there's no stalemate between conflicted parties??? One thing that you haven't touched upon is whether they need to consider a sunrise period for trademark holders?

 

[Bacon Farmer]

There is a hierarchy.

Nobody here will tell .com.au and .net.au are equal except auDA.

 

[findtim]

Maybe an auction between conflicted holders so there's no stalemate between conflicted parties???

auction is out of the question IMO, the main reason is that one party could have a significant financial advantage over another, not just in ability to bid but to bid until winning, a win loose situation.
this could very well happen also if foreign companies are welcomed just like the real estate sales of last year.

sunrise period for trademark holders?

also needs a cut off point for those who do not trademark their domain name, not having a trademark is of course potentially dangerous but its also an extra expense nobody should need on a domain if domain is purchased BEFORE a trademark is registered, most businesses i work with do not hold trademarks and IPAustralia have previously told me that a trademark will not beat longevity of business, so a bricks and mortar with dubbodentist and no trademark on a 15yr old domain would win against say spec savers ( cashed up ) registering a trademark and then trying to take the domain from them.
as for sunrise period, like i said, there are more issues i haven't thought of thus the thread.
tim

 

[findtim]

Nobody here will tell .com.au and .net.au are equal except auDA.

ummm well some members have posted equality and i have spoken offline with some that have also mentioned it.
auda doesn't care about all this, its not their money being spent on defensive rego's trademarks, legals. they just want their 3 bucks.
tim

 

[johno69]

.com.au drops:this is an expired domain, so does its longevity start from the new registration date or the original registration date ?

Expired domains caught, are new registrations with a new creation date.

 

[findtim]

with a new creation date

yes, this should presently be a consideration for anyone buying on drop.
investigating the present .net.au owner? or business actually using it would be a consideration of mine if buying a drop

tim

 

[neddy]

There's no hierarchy of rights so it's a no brainer really. The NZ option or a modified version looks to be the only way to go. Maybe an auction between conflicted holders so there's no stalemate between conflicted parties??? One thing that you haven't touched upon is whether they need to consider a sunrise period for trademark holders?

The issue of trademark holders was dealt with by the Names Panel. See report page 9. Obviously final determination will be up to auDA Board.

Panel members also considered whether other rights holders (particularly trade mark
owners) should be included in a priority registration process, but on balance it is felt that
these rights are more appropriately protected by other mechanisms such as the .au Dispute
Resolution Policy (auDRP).

Why do you say NZ model is the only way to go? Most people I speak to seem to prefer the UK model.

Oh to be on the implementation working group!!

 

[findtim]

Oh to be on the implementation working group!!

i wish you were !
tim

 

[Shane]

My thoughts...

its the one thing i can't seem to solve if/when .au arrives, problems i face are:
longevity, what if .net.au was registered before the .com.au ever was ?

To be fair the .au should probably go to the net.au holder in this case, but overall I'm more in favour of the UK model where the com.au owner would get preference regardless. This could also be an issue for certain edu.au and maybe even gov.au domains that have been registered before the com.au versions, however I imagine they'd rather keep their full extension.

.com.au drops:this is an expired domain, so does its longevity start from the new registration date or the original registration date ?

It would have to start from the new registration date. I'd hope this won't be an issue since com.au owners should get preference regardless of the age of each extension.

competing for .au: how does a .net.au owner who has come "2nd in the race" have any right to a .au ?

I don't think they have any right. This is why I favour the UK model over the NZ model.

speculator rego: what if someone registers today a .net.au specifically to have a chance at the .au? is there a cut off point?
cut off: there will need to be 2 cut off points, one to weed out speculators? which could be any date in the past prior to recent the auda announcement, or even prior to the names panel creation ??? , and a cut off point once fully decided and announced.

The NZ scheme used the original announcement date as the cut-off date for existing registrations to have rights to a .nz domain. I think that works well as it stops the speculators from jumping onto net.au names.

 

[findtim]

i agree that the .edu and .gov's will just be happy with what they have as its is a good extension and clearly states authority for them.
if i was monash.edu.au or griffith.edu.au i wouldn't change, not to mention the countless email addresses they produce to students and facilty
tim

 

[findtim]

UK model where the com.au owner would get preference regardless

yes, "regardless" its the major issue and requires a total disregard of a section of the ownership base, thats the difficult thing imo.
tim

 

[neddy]

There is that lovely saying that comes to mind:

"When you're up to your neck in alligators, it's easy to forget that the initial objective was to drain the swamp".

With regards implementing direct registrations, the initial objective / raison d'être of both UK and NZ was to "grow the market". The NZ situation has not been good in this regard - in a very small domain market, there are currently 16,000 "conflicted domains" that will probably never see the light of day. See April Newsletter.

If Australia is going to do direct registrations because "we" want to grow the market, then we have to look at something similar to the UK situation. Imho.

 

[Bacon Farmer]

This whole grow the market bullshit is a complete red herring.

Why does the market need to grow?

auDA's role to look after Australian domains has been hijacked by this fake issue.

Which is why the minority supply side influence perversion should be addressed.

 

[findtim]

where will the market grow? take away current .com.au owners and lets pretend for a minute that they get GIVEN the.au, thus no funds to registras or auda.
that means a great deal of domains in .au are taken and you are back to where you started from, all that will happen is they will now hand reg the .au whilst the "old" .com.au stays on the shelf? but most likely .com.au will kick on regardless.
so we still get drops, we still get new hand reg on anything not already registered. so there is no growth !

so the "growth" is false, its just a number that doesn't represent growth except in certain peoples bank accounts taken from everyday 1-2 domain owners and domainers.

its not "growth" its "duplication"

tim

 

[Shane]

This whole grow the market bullshit is a complete red herring.

Why does the market need to grow?

auDA's role to look after Australian domains has been hijacked by this fake issue.

Which is why the minority supply side influence perversion should be addressed.

Agreed. It's clearly driven by the supply side looking for ways to grow revenue rather than to provide some sort of benefit to the world.

But I'm looking for ways to grow my revenue every day too, so you can't blame anyone on the supply side for that.

The problem (as we all know) is that the majority of people who have influence on or within auDA will benefit in some way from direct registrations, so it was more or less impossible to expect anything other than a 'yes' outcome for direct registrations.

its not "growth" its "duplication"

So true. Sure the number of registrations is going to grow, but the majority of them will just be defensive duplicates.

 

[findtim]

there is a HUGE difference betweengrowing your business and "lining your pockets" .
i'm sure you do/offer nothing that doesn't have value and is optional to the client.
tim

 

[snoopy]

Agreed. It's clearly driven by the supply side looking for ways to grow revenue rather than to provide some sort of benefit to the world.

But I'm looking for ways to grow my revenue every day too, so you can't blame anyone on the supply side for that.

The problem (as we all know) is that the majority of people who have influence on or within auDA will benefit in some way from direct registrations, so it was more or less impossible to expect anything other than a 'yes' outcome for direct registrations.

Agree if you look at Ausregistries submissions to AUDA about .au it is all about "creates" declining. It is a financial argument with a basis in growing revenue, not growing usage.

"For many years, the .au namespace grew rapidly with the uptake of the Internet and regular policy reviews, with domain name creates reaching a peak in FY12. Since then, annual domain name creates have begun to decline slowly as illustrated by the following chart showing domain name creates over the last seven financial years."

https://www.auda.org.au/assets/pdf/sub-ausregistry17.pdf

Of course the reason behind that decline is less domain speculation due to Google's 2012 exact match domain changes and a substantial slump in .com.au values due to that.

I suspect the next big disgrace will be Ausregistry winning the .au tender, probably with terrible terms for everyone except Ausregistry and AUDA.