.au Australia may ban domaining!

[versatileinc360]

Domain investors will soon be no longer welcome in Australia’s .au, if proposed policy changes are approved. Registrants who own more than 100 names and cannot prove they’re not a domainer will have their names deleted, under the recommendations of an Policy Review Panel appointed by Aussie ccTLD registry auDA this week. The practice of vacuuming up domains for resale has long been against auDA policy, but the rules have been perceived as weak, easily worked around, and have been rarely enforced. The current policy states: "A registrant may not register a domain name for the sole purpose of resale or transfer to another entity....
A quick news for all .au domainers
Thanks

 

[barefoottech]

A couple comments and observations:-
Anyone with 100+ domains should have no problem being considered a domainer, end-users rarely have more than a couple.
auDA is NOT the registry for .au Domains, it only administers and determines policy
to quote wikipedia

Oversight of .au is by .au Domain Administration (auDA). It is a not-for-profit organisation whose membership is derived from Internet organisations, industry members and interested individuals. The organisation operates with the endorsement of the Australian Government and with the delegated authority of ICANN.

Afilias is the registry for .au domains, yes the same Afilias that is the registry for .info, .mobi and .pro & several other ccTLDs
disclaimer:
Bare Foot Tech (my registered business name] is the owner of more than 100+ domains and former member of auDA

 

[barefoottech]

To answer all the naysayers the following is a summary of auDA decision

quote is from netfleet, a major player in australian domain sales.
auDA have released their response to the PRP's policy recommendations, there is a lot for us to smile about.

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

With this, auDA management have proved that they want a fair outcome for all industry stakeholders. The Australian domain name industry has the potential to become a thriving industry. Let's make it happen.