Just received reports from clients that auDA has sent them an email asking for feedback in the form of a survey what to do with the contested domains.
Good afternoon
.au Domain Administration (auDA) is an Australian not-for-profit community-based organisation, endorsed by the Australian Government to manage the .au domain for the benefit of all Australians.
We are writing to you because you are an applicant for a contested .au direct domain name: CONTESTEDDOMAIN.AU
NB/ this maybe one of several in your name. We are seeking your views on how contested names should be resolved in the future.
Under the current rules, a contested .au direct name remains unavailable for registration until all but one applicant has withdrawn their application.
We invite you to complete the following survey, which asks for your opinion on several options for resolving .au direct contested names.
https://xxx.sgizmo.com/s3/xxxx/?sguid=xxxx
The survey should take you less than 5 minutes to complete and all responses will remain anonymous.
What is a contested .au direct domain name?
In September 2022, we launched a new .au domain name option called .au direct, where domain names can end in just “.au” — e.g. forexample.au.
Registrants with existing domain names in the .au namespace were given the opportunity to apply for the .au direct domain name that was an exact match to their existing name. Where more than one person applied for the same .au direct domain name, the name became contested and couldn’t be allocated.
What we will do with the outcome of the survey
The outcome of this survey will be provided to an external Policy Advisory Panel who will be reviewing the arrangements for ongoing resolution of contested .au direct names as part of its review of the .au Domain Administration Rules: Licensing (.au Licensing Rules).
In addition to considering the results of this survey, the Policy Advisory Panel will be undertaking public consultation as part of their wider review. Throughout this process
you will have a further opportunity to provide feedback on the resolution of contested names.
You can keep track of the work of the Policy Advisory Panel here: Licensing Rules.
If you have any questions please contact us at policies@auda.org.au
In the survey you are asked how many contested domains you have and gives you 7 options to provide how you feel about each one.
These are the options given in order to score and then final was to rank them in order of preference followed by how long before one of these should be implemented such as 1 year, 2, 3, 4, 5etc.
- Continue with the current approach for managing contested names
- Allocate contested names to the applicant with the earliest registration date
- Allocate contested names in an auction open to any persons with an Australian presence
- Allocate contested names in an auction between the contesting parties
- Remove the name from registration by any person permanently
- Allocate contested names in a random draw between the contesting parties
- Make contested names available by general release to any persons with an Australian presence
Interesting to note is that one option was not mentioned or even offered as an option and that was to allocate to the .com.au holder which is the primary extension and all others are refunded their application fees. If they force one thing will auDA refund all prior application fees?which also was not considered or mentioned in the survey.
Some of our opinions on the 7 options.
1. Continue with the current approach for managing contested names
Seems like the number of contested domains drop each year so this is a do nothing approach. A lot less effort for all, and especially for Registrars that do not need to change anything that they do now. However Registrar do not like supporting this at all, as not easy to manage and a lot of time and effort is required supporting a unique issue which is not at all viable. So the Registrant might be OK with this option, the Registrar not so much.
2. Allocate contested names to the applicant with the earliest registration date
Now this sounds fair..ish… If one were to know which domain is older? Unfortunately there is no easy way to do that as the create date is not made public on any .au domains. So this option would only be picked by someone that knows that their extension is the older one.
3. Allocate contested names in an auction open to any persons with an Australian presence
Well this is an interesting option and not sure why anyone would select this? Probably one of the last ones to consider. And besides who would run the auction, auDA? They would need to get in a consultant to build an auction platform, that would cost hundreds of thousands, but I can see them that they would justify this expense as in their view as they would pocket all the proceeds..
4. Allocate contested names in an auction between the contesting parties
This seems a bit more in line with the original claims, where only the parties left standing can duke it out. Seems fair, but once again auDA will waste a lot on hiring consultants to build this for them for a single use. Also important to note that auDA should not be profiting from such a scenario, all funds should be donated to a reputable charity. Having a way for auDA to profit from this is simply unethical.
5. Remove the name from registration by any person permanently
Why would they even give option 5. Block a domain forever, that is just crazy when in many cases one of the contested parties is the Australian Government, who would not care if a .au exists or not. I hope that they do not get a say in any of this as this. This is by far the worst option for the name space, removing great domain names from the entire space forever…
6. Allocate contested names in a random draw between the contesting parties
This seems a bit more fair to do it, get a 50/50 chance in most cases… some there are 4, so reduces change to 25%… just remove .org.au from these claims and this would then be a decent option.
7. Make contested names available by general release to any persons with an Australian presence
Interesting choice, this technically removes auDA from running the auction and removed the unethical portion of auDA profiting from this and puts it in the hands of independent drop catchers like Drop. If you could only chose from Option 3 and 7, definitely 7 is the way to go as the technology is already there, no need for auDA to waste $ on building something that already exists and from profiting from something that they should not be…
I would further suggest that Drop could in theory run a closed auction with just the contested parties, which would be the same as option 4. If limited to the contested parties, the one with the biggest pocket wins.
One option not presented:
Originally we were a proponent that the .com.au holder gets the .au name sake.. .and we still believe that now. The .com.au is the top extension and it should have the 1st right of refusal on the .au name sake.
Either way, would be nice to get this resolved quickly as status quo is not doing anyone any favours.
