One Week To Go For Your Say: Should .AU Allow Second Level Registrations

There is only one week to go for submissions and comments on whether, among other issues, second level .au registrations should be allowed.

The issue has been considered, and rejected, by previous Names Policy Panels, but is considered more of a topical issue following the introduction of second level registrations in the .uk (United Kingdom) and .nz (New Zealand) ccTLDs in 2014.

AuDA, the .au policy and regulatory body, released an issues paper in April and interested parties have until 1 June to submit comments.

Issues being considered by the Names Policy Panel convened to look at changes to registration policies also include:

• what, if any, changes should be made to the eligibility and allocation policy rules for asn.au, com.au, id.au, net.au and org.au
• should the domain name licence period be changed from the current two years to allow registrations from one to five years
• how should expired domain names be made available or, as the issues paper explains it, “should the current second level domain eligibility criteria (ie. restricting com.au/net.au to commercial entities, org.au/asn.au to not-for-profit entities, id.au to individuals) be modified?
• is the ‘close and substantial connection’ rule desirable?
  what changes are required to address the new practice regarding business name registrations
• the reserved list and misspellings.

The Names Policy Panel consists of nominated members of the Australian internet community, including this writer, who have expressed interest in helping shape policy for the .au domain space.

For more information, to download the issues paper and submit a response either via an online survey or written submission, see:
www.auda.org.au/policies/panels-and-committees/2015-names-policy-panel

 written by David Goldstein