At 19:41 7/11/97 +1100, Andrew Dixon wrote:
>Dear sir'
>
>I work within the computer industry, and advise clients about domain names.
>I understand the domain name policies and work within the rules.
>Lately I am finding that Melbourne IT are either favoring certain companies
>or have thrown their rules out the window.
>
>Some domains recently aquired :- corporate.com.au
>                                                  business.com.au
>                                                  barristers.com.au
>                                                  lawyer.com.au
>
>I feel there is a conflict of interest at Melbourne IT as domain names are
>simply a big money spinner for them.
>Some companies can't get a name and others can leaves me wondering why ! 
>Is money or influence involved here ?
>
>Thank you.
>Andrew Dixon. 
>

Andrew

Thank you for drawing my attention (and that of the dns mailing list!) to
those anomalies, which I take very seriously. I have investigated the
examples you gave, this morning, and am satisfied that no unethical "money
or influence" or "racket" (to quote Ramin) has taken place in the Bureau's
decisions. The old adage of Australian politics - "given the choice of a
conspiracy or a stuff-up as the explanation, go for a stuff-up every time"
- is equally applicable here.

Let me discuss the examples you cited, one by one.

1. 'business.com.au' was registered in 1996 under a previous DNA regime,   
as Paul Montgomery has noted in a subsequent posting. On taking over the
com.au DNA responsibility, we agreed to renew all previously allocated
com.au domain names, provided they are registered by a legitimate
Australian business entity. 
 
2.and 3. Concerning 'lawyers' and 'barristers', the legal advice we
received at the time was that names of professions are not goods or
services, or industry sectors, or organisation types, and therefore are
acceptable under the policies in place since 17 January 1997 (when the
earlier policy excluding all common words was changed, with endorsement
from the intiaa dns forum). 

Since October we have been trialling the use of the Index of the current
(hard copy) Yellow Pages as a more objective test of whether a proposed
name is a generic good or service (and therefore should be rejected). Once
again we 'grandfather' (i.e. retain) all earlier decisions in our zone
files. Using the Yellow Pages Index will not please everyone, but it is a
readily available reference, and it will enable ISPs and other customers to
check out a name before applying for it.

4. "Corporate.com.au" was a mistake made by an inexperienced registrar in
July, and this was drawn to our Bureau's attention two weeks ago. For this
mistake, we apologise to other applicants; the name, being an organisation
type, should have been rejected under our rules. The company that has been
allocated the name has implemented a website and is conducting their
business using that name, and I do not intend to penalise their business by
taking their domain name away from them, when they received it in good
faith. It was our mistake, not theirs.

I welcome any fair criticisms of the com.au Bureau service, so that we can
keep improving it. In particular we are willing to help, and have helped,
applicants denied names prior to 17.1.97 under the "common word" rule move
to their preferred name, where the post-January '97 rules permit it.
Hopefully the errors the Bureau has made in implementing the com.au naming
policies are less than 0.02% of the 21,000 we have registered for
Australian businesses since we commenced this service on 1 November 1996. 

Peter Gerrand
CEO, Melbourne IT 
(Domain Name Administrator for com.au)