Glen Turner wrote:
> Regarding company name dispute resolution:

> Given Australia has a small number of states (unlike the US),
> and thus a small number company name registers, perhaps
> the DNS name should include a company register identifier?

> This would move disputes over names out of the DNS arena
> entirely.

This, and DNS registry-protecting legislation, may not be necessary.

Out of curiosity - why have those involved in this proposal, as well as
those involved with Melbourne IT, rejected the use of "interpleader" as
expounded upon at ;
http://www.patents.com/nsi/iip.sht
? I'm all for diversity of policies, but, so far, it seems to me to be a
particularly elegant method of dispute resolution.

That is - Party A successfully applies for foo.bar.au. Party B wants
foo.bar.au and is prepared to sue for it. The DNS registry formally
tenders the "right to use" foo.bar.au to a court with jurisdiction
over it, and advises the court that it will dispose of the asset in
accordance with the court's orders. Party A is served with papers
inviting it to participate in the interpleader action. The parties
present their cases, the court decides who gets the domain, and that
should be the end of the matter.

This is all under the assumption that interpleader is valid under
Australian law, of course. Whilst the dispute is in progress, the
registry continues to administrate for party A - processing transactions,
etc. - normally. If a given transaction is not completed when a ruling is
made, a refund minus an administrative fee would be in order.

Even a simple First-Come-First-Served registration policy should work
under such a system, and I don't see that any other given policy would
stop it from working. It's good in that the registry is merely doing up
front what it would have been forced to do anyway, should one of the
parties decide to be difficult.

This _can_ be unfair to those who by rights should have foo.bar.au, but
can't afford representation as good as that of the other party, but the
same goes for the current policies - removing the registry from the loop
doesn't change that. It's much better than the registry "backing the
wrong horse" and going bankrupt defending itself.

Nick.