AUDA - to effectively ban domain purchases for investment

I just had a read of the changes that the Australian governing authority (AUDA) is looking to introduce to the .AU namespace. I must admit that I found myself quite perplexed that they have no idea what is going on in the domain space.

The single biggest problem with AUDA is they are the police, judge, jury and executioner of the .AU namespace. What do I mean by this?

AUDA actively trawls the .AU namespace looking for domains that may fall foul of one of their policies. When they find one, they demand the registrant justify why they should keep the domain and if AUDA is not satisfied with the response they turn the domain off.

Let me share with you my experience with this process. A number of years ago I used to own around 2,000 .AU domains, I dropped the lot of them and would now encourage anyone that owns a .au domain to do the same.

Even though I owned generic domains (ie. no TM violations) AUDA in their infinite wisdom decided to take a domain off me because they had researched the fact that a New Zealand company with a similar name to my domain may want to come to Australia. Completely ridiculous.

The fact that the New Zealand company didn’t exist prior to me registering the domain is beside the point. After complaining (and the domain turned off) AUDA then threatened to investigate each and every one of my .AU domains by using Google (a dynamic search engine) as the arbitrator of whether I could keep my domains. Like I said, I dropped the lot and invested my money in other namespaces where I had security over my assets.

I have no idea why AUDA can't do what the rest of the world does by managing a complaints process. This would separate the policing and judgement roles.

Now AUDA is going through a policy review that is the laughing stock of the world. Let me cite a number of examples.

Domain warehousing (ie. investing in domains for sale purposes) will be effectively banned. To illustrate just how stupid some of the policy changes are, it sates (remember this will effectively become law) registrants are not able to build “computer generated webpages”….. For those individuals at AUDA that aren’t aware, the entire Internet is run on computers and ALL webpages are generated on computers. Since this is the case, the policy in place means that ALL domains should be deleted. Good luck!

Domain monetisation (ie. investing in domains to monetise the traffic) will also be banned. Under the proposed policy, not only is Pay per Click (PPC) singled out but the entire affiliate industry. As an example, my daughter built a website that sold via affiliates a host of fashion paraphernalia….sorry girl, that site is going to be banned.

A part of the policy also says that a domain name with directory listings will be banned…..so much for google.com.au (or maybe AUDA will be selective). When I searched for “knitting” on Google how is the page being displayed related to the domain name google.com.au?

By the way, I just loved the lack of understanding on how PPC works. In the past PPC links provided by Google used to be context sensitive but now they are psychographically targeted. This means that in the past the content used to relate to the domain but now it relates to the user looking at the domain.

Under the AUDA policy they are enforcing that PPC links must relate to the domain……not the person. The policy suggests that AUDA is going to use a “reasonableness test” to ensure this is the case……I think that the AUDA police will discover the magic of psychographic targeting. Maybe this is why porn is being displayed on some of the pages for domains they are investigating.....

Don’t worry everyone, there is a grandfathering clause……but it only lasts until the end of the current registration period. The fact that you may have registered an AU domain under the former rules for the past 10 years is irrelevant. Remember my comments earlier about security over assets? It’s a joke.

So I’m at ICANN and bump into the AUDA team of a number of directors and the CEO. I ask about wildcarding the AU namespace to help promote Australia and the com.au brand. The CEO of AUDA states emphatically that .AU is already wildcarded (none of the others disagreed BTW)…..at which point I pull out my phone and proved that it isn’t.

It occurs to me that these same people are making the insane policies (there’s a lot more stupidity btw) and congratulate themselves at being just sooooo clever.

Let me give AUDA a heads up….. Just a few years ago the new gTLDs have come onto the scene and begun chomping into the market share of most notably the ccTLDs. I’m not sure if AUDA is aware but just over half the new gTLDs are being monetised in some fashion or another. In fact, it’s estimated that around 40% of all domains in the world are purchased for investment reasons.

Given this is the case, AUDA, you need to understand that like the music industry of the past, you are effectively waring against your customers. Like me, your customers will just move their business elsewhere and the AU namespace will be even more of a backwater than it already is.

Article by Australian Domainer
Michael Gilmour
Co-founder of domain asset monetisation company Park Logic

Originally posted here: https://whizzbangsblog.com/article-archive/auda-you-have-no-idea

 

Even though it might have it's short comings the .com is still the most preferred.
Whenever there is a problem with any obscure extention just switch to the next best one.

 

I didn't read post, but I read the title. I read a post a few days ago saying that it HAS BEEN illegal to own .au for investing, and everyone that did it broke terms.

How hilarious, OP lost 2,000 domains in the past and is he is suggesting the grounds of his ruling are to exist in the future. Quit covering for dopes.

 

Link to the change in policy = ?

.au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) is the administrator and self-regulatory policy body for the .au ccTLD.

Cheers
Corey

 

It is rediculous. AUDA seems to be out of their mind.
Buy .com instead , until the policy makers calms down.

 

I think this is an important issue, not just for .au but possible spill over effects.

My understanding is that the legislation is already in place, but the change is to more fully implement/enforce it. I also thought that it only applied to those who have more than 100 domains (is that right?). Really the move is in line with making the process of holding and selling domain names illegal. In many ways the central aim of the infamous Verisign post was similar, although with an undefined method that was to come in the second blog post that never appeared.

I see one off the biggest risks to domain investing regulatory moves to make the act of holding for sale domains illegal or seriously hampered. We should all note this as it develops.

Bob

 

Bob,

Do not worry about this there is plenty of evidence out there that they encouraged investors to buy more domains.

 

At the beginning of my domaining "journey", I thought that since almost all the .com domains are already taken, I should grab some .com.au's.

The same day I found this forum, I also signed up to an Australian domaining forum (forgot its name). Anyway, long story short, the topics on that forum were mainly about auDA. How it is f*cked up and how many members decided to leave the "organisation" and campaign against it. It stank. So I totally forgot about investing in that extension. I only own 3 AU names. One which is my baby daughter's name, and 2 names that I might use for a holding company and a subsidiary that are among my future plans.

Really feel bad for all fellow domainers who now find themselves in the middle of this big mess.

Thanks for the article.

 

Also it is funny that till this very day I still stumble upon ads by netfleet, promoting their expired .com.au domain auctions.

 

A link needs to be supplied about the possible changes, otherwise it's just a talk fest, gossip, fake news.

Cheers
Corey

 

This article by Kevin is informative and also has the link for public discussion on the proposed changes from the governing body (of course there is also the link from whizzbaangsblog in the OP as well).
http://domainincite.com/24091-australia-likely-to-ban-domaining

 

a link from the governing body! from https://www.auda.org.au/

Cheers
Corey

 

Here is the direct link to the background document and call for public input from AUDA (taken from Kevin's blog post above)

https://www.auda.org.au/policies/pa...review-panel-final-report-and-recommendations

 

Recommendations to the auDA Board: Reform of Existing Policies & Implementation of Direct Registration auDA

Cheers
Corey

 

Industry figures and brands are warning the proposed top level .au domain changes by auDA, the organisation responsible for Australian internet domains -
Brands voice objections to top level .au domain introduction

Cheers
Corey

 

It is rejected: https://www.internetcommerce.org/au...prohibit-domain-name-investment-in-australia/

 

Is this a joke? After all if all businesses are classed as investments, do they want to make commerce illegal too?

 

good

now to have closure the genius who came up with this should get fired.

 

I have heard that Australia has a lot of "nanny state" government policies... if so then AUDA is par for the course yes?

 

auDA have released their response to the PRP's policy recommendations.

Key comments you'll want to know:

1. Resale - "...a Person can transfer a licence to another eligible Person by novation of the Licence Agreement and by the transferee Person entering into a new Licence Agreement. The commercial nature of this arrangement is a matter between parties...There is no evidence that domain name flipping as an investment strategy is having a negative impact on the utility of the .au domain nor resulting in a scarcity of domain names." - page 4
2. Warehousing - "The warehousing prohibition appears to disproportionately target domain investors...This proposal elevates the rights of trademark and other intellectual property owners over other licence holders in the .au domain, which may give rise to issues of market power and anti-competitive practices. Management believes that further information is required to assess whether the net benefit to the community of prohibiting warehousing in respect of a class of registrants outweighs the competition issues. For these reasons Management believes that there should be no change to the existing policy position." - pages 4 & 5
3. Domain monetisation - "A Person who satisfies the eligibility and allocation criteria for a licence in the com.au, net.au or .au namespace will be able to use that licence for any legitimate purpose, including domain name monetisation or domain name investment." - page 6

Here's the link to the full document

https://www.auda.org.au/assets/Uploads/Management-Report-PRP-Recommendations-Final.pdf

Cheers
Corey

 

Just got this in my inbox from KEY-SYSTEMS GBMH