FEB DNT meetup

[DomainShield]

10% will defensively register
3% will have a conflict
87% won't know or care

Where is the positive in all of this? (aside from revenue for registrars)

This is the good bit. Remember in the beginning I said that about 30% of attempted .com.au registrations get stuck at the ABN screen and then registrars sell them a .io or .xyz domain? That is like 1 million Australian websites started by people who originally wanted a com.au domain that ended up with a .com .net .org .io .xyz .sydney or .melbourne domain.
What registrars have been saying all along is that they can prove there is a demand for an ABN/ACN less extension that makes sense for end users because they are already servicing this market. They are also on the record as saying that it makes little difference to them in financial terms because they can still sell hosting to those people regardless of the extension. They would however prefer to sell them a .au domain so that auDA is involved and the customers are being looked after by a thick registry.
This is the basis for all the talk about demand and why there is an opportunity to grow .au and to provide a better solution for more Australians without adding significant costs to consumers. It hopefully also explains why registrars don't see it as a money grabbing attempt. They consider themselves to be white knights doing everyone a favor (except the people running all the other gTLDs who would then lose out on those registrations.

There are other benefits, like it being shorter but I think the main sticking point for many is a supposed lack of proof of demand.

I would like to acknowledge that domainers are going to draw a short straw here in the short term as holding costs would basically double. So lets ask for cost based concessions and if your prediction of a huge wholesale price reduction comes true then maybe this would not be too bad.

auDA is desperate to increase its bank balance, that is why they will not announce the new registry pricing, they want to keep most of the saving rather than pass it on to consumers. They want $50 million in the bank......more. They got knocked back on their ambition to run the registry by members but they'll try and claw back a lot of the revenue anyway.

You seem to know more about this than I do. They explained the delay to me as being caused by wanting to consult properly with the industry. Considering I have been harassing them endlessly about not consulting with us I cannot realistically complain about this delay now when it looks like they are finally being responsive. I cannot see them justifying having more money in the bank. Surely they would need to have a good explanation for how they plan to spend the money if they wanted to increase their share?

Of course an auction will be to chase money, it may well be $10million for them.

It has happened before so one cannot put it past them but lets not give them too many ideas.

 

[Bacon Farmer]

The issue is the that auDA is allocating a bunch of confusing similar domains, for someone like realestate.com.au, news.com.au, cars.com.au and the other 90,000 they will be pushed into paying to protect their existing brands.

It's not just the contested 90,000 domains, it's the defensive registrations for the other 2 million .com.au owners.

 

[DomainShield]

Great night! Thanks Erwin, Chris, Tim, Anthony and Nic. Thanks also to Domain Shield for sponsoring the night. Looking forward to the next one. Cheers!

Was great to meet you, thanks for coming along and sharing your views.

 

[DomainShield]

It's not just the contested 90,000 domains, it's the defensive registrations for the other 2 million .com.au owners.

There is no evidence overseas or here of anywhere near a 66% upswing in defensive registrations as you are suggesting.
A figure of 10% is much more realistic and this figure is also fairly close to the number of .net.au registrations we already have.

 

[Bacon Farmer]

Yeah ok maybe 2 million would be extreme but it's still twice as many as suggested by the 90,000 contested domains theory.

 

[DomainShield]

Yeah ok maybe 2 million would be extreme but it's still twice as many as suggested by the 90,000 contested domains theory.

You are right there are two figures to consider but the costs associated with the two figures are very different and is why no one is really talking about the defensive registrations.
The 90,000 contested domains are going to be fought over hotly and are going to cost the winners significant money. We really do need to have them in our thoughts when we balance the pros and cons of direct registrations.

The other 230,000 estimated defensive registrations are not going to be contested and are effectively going to cost only $20 to secure.
This in the big picture of getting a domain extension suitable for all Australians is considered to be almost not worth talking about. I would even go so far as to say that getting 2 million registrants involved in a conversation that will only cost 10% of them $20 seems to be more annoying to them than useful for them. I am not suggesting we don't allow them a voice but it certainly goes a long way to explain why representatives of small businesses have declined to be involved in the Policy Review Panel process so far and why it looks like Small Businesses don't seem to care what happens.

 

[Scott7]

I can't make it. I do want you if you can to collectively talk about some major auDA issues.

So you have something to talk about besides sport and family etc maybe watch the videos from Jim Stewart PLUS try to get the auDA PRP meeting Audio and presentations from Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Crazy stuff which is having a massive damaging affect on our trusted ,au namespace.

Brett Fenton and Melbourne IT MUST resign from the auDA PRP or be removed. They should not have ever been on it with their previous actions around the proposed competing .au extension and some statements made against rightful .au domain name owners..

https://www.domainer.com.au/rocking-the-boat/

This post was a thread hijack. Because of this, we now have three pages of posts that are unrelated to the thread.

DNTrade meetups are informal gatherings over a few drinks, where many topics (domaining and otherwise) are discussed in an overwhelmingly positive and friendly manner. If you want input, you turn up. Mind you, newcomers to the space are more likely to be turned off, rather than turn up after reading this thread.

Trying to turn as many threads as possible into a discussion about one particular topic, weakens, rather than strengthens, the effectiveness of what one is saying. One focused thread is far more powerful.

 

[findtim]

i agree totally with scott, i know that post meetup the conversation here was related to much of the meetup discussions but i do feel we should push it into the already existing threads and keep this one clean.
tim