The review panel recommendations that started in 2025 and reported in 2026 are in and really bad news for domain investors. Even though the recommendation for domain Monetization is as below:
RECOMMENDATION 1: No change to the current approach that allows domain monetisation
in the com.au, net.au and .au direct namespace. auDA to consider increasing the level of
audits and compliance checks on monetised sites to ensure they are not used to facilitate
DNS Abuse
To problem here is the next recommendation only has options to achieve the end of domain investing:
RECOMMENDATION 2: The Panel now seeks further views from stakeholders on the three
options proposed above to address concerns around monetised sites as a means to
achieve allocation.
The specifics of this relates to:
In seeking to find a suitable recommendation for reform, if any, to address the concerns
identified by the Panel and through the multi-stakeholder process, the following three options
were considered in depth:
1. Increase compliance checks in relation to the current rules
2. Clarify the ‘Services’ definition and pay per click arrangements and adopt additional
administrative rules related to the use of monetised sites
3. Delete sub para (f) from section 2.4.4 (2) of the .au Licensing Rules
The 1st 2 will make Monetization harder. The 3rd “Delete sub para (f) from section 2.4.4 (2) of the .au Licensing Rules” will practically kill domain monetization. It will absolutely destroy drop Catching, as none of the current Drop clients would be able to catch any more domains. Any form of domain investing in bulk would be against the eligibility. According to this panel and auDA, bulk investing is anyone that has 50 or more domains. Anyone that is an investor should be SERIOUSLY CONCERNED! We recommend that they submit their objection to to the panel who are all against monetization so full of bias, so a few people are making biased recommendations, despite what the market actually wants as none of the 3 are leading towards an outcome where domain monetization is allowed.
So what is para (f)
2.4.4 A Person applying for a Licence in the com.au and net.au Namespaces must be
(1) a commercial entity; and
(2) the domain name applied for must be:
a. a Match of the Person’s company, business, statutory or Personal name; or
b. an Acronym of the Person’s company, business, statutory or Personal name; or
c. a Match of the Person’s Australian Trade Mark; or
d. a Match to or an Acronym of a name of a Related Australian Body Corporate or
e. a Match or an Acronym of a name of:
i. a partnership of which the Person is a partner;
ii. a trust of which the Person is a trustee; or
f. a Match or Synonym of the name of:
i.a Service that the Person provides;
ii.Goods that the Person sells (whether retail or wholesale);
iii.an event that the Person registers or sponsors;
iv.an activity that the Person facilitates, teaches or trains;
v.premises which the Person operate and which that Person is providing at the time of the application.
Removing just (f) would financially harm, not only Drop.com.au but also every other domain marketplace and domain monetization platform, including: Godaddy, Afternic, Above, Sedo, Atom. Every domain brokerage service, and also Brand protection companies such as CSC and MarkMonitor that manage many clients domain have more than 50 domains would also be affected by such a policy change.
The only option that these companies would have is to litigate against auDA if such a policy change was attempted to be introduced. They would have everything to lose here and would be forced to fight to keep their business alive and keep staff employed. Any policy change to remove the ability for domain investors to trade in domain names would be detrimental to the whole namespace and would make .com.au domains less valuable and would encourage adoption of other TLDs instead. If the registrars have lower demand for .com.au domains, the whole name space suffers.
So who is going to be affected by this? Around 17% of all domains according to auDA. They state that 582,895 domain names are held by owners that have more than 50 domains. 17% is a HUGE portion of the total name space that will be affected by this policy change if implemented. Important to note that this is just those that have 50 or more domains, we estimate that the real number will be over 35% of all domains that will be affected, as we can safely assume it will apply to anyone with domains. auDA get ready and hire more staff as this will only lead to one thing… the biggest influx of complaints sent to auDA for every domain that does not match the company name that they have ever seen!
What the Panel should be recommending is removing the whole 2.4.4 (2) in full, dispense with “what words in a domain” a Company can own, as long as they are an Australian Company in good standing. Plus exact match for TM Holders. That is what really matters. That provides the cleanest solution, and stops the need for auDA to be checking if a website is monetized or not. As long as it not used for illegal purposes, auDA should not and actually does not want to be involved. The trust of the au namespace is based on having an Australian business attached to a domain, that is what is important and not if it exactly matches the company name!
Disappointing to read the limited mindset that the panelists have towards the .au namespace. They site that scammers are using the Monetisation clause to register domains, do they not realise that people that run scams are making more from these scams that most domain investors so they can afford to register a business name for every domain, it does not stop them, this policy change is only designed to stop domain investing. That is it, nothing else will be affected. The panel is clearly biased and have an anti monetization stance.
Rather cleaver actually, save face and say we are for monetization, while changing eligibility which really shows their real agenda! Don’t be fooled.
Read the full auDA Review Details and recommendations here.
