At 17:26 17/06/98 +0930, you wrote:
>> 
>> a.      Ensure that NONE of your current or future resellers repeat this.
>> b.      Ensure that your resellers are trained to provide the FACTS to the
>> consumers. Such as   
>> á       au.com is a Privately owned Domain name 
>> á       it is NOT a recognized country level domain  
>> á       it is not an accepted country code as is com.au  
>
>is not a monopoly either !
>
>fair go - everybody gets a rogue reseller every now and again even with
>the best term and conditions.
>
>Perhaps if there was real competition in com.au as opposed to the travesty
>we have now then this type of behaviour would not happen - we could all
>come from this same position of strength and power when reselling domain
>names !

Well said, Stephen. Quick to get the knives out, not so quick to clean up
their own house.

Actually, the fact that we do encourage resellers and DON'T compete with
them unfairly (our end user price encourages our resellers to undercut our
prices) perhaps shows the difference in approach.

We don't present our products as anything other than what they are. We do
not claim that .au.com is an 'oficially recognised domain'  whatever that
means, and we do make it clear that it is privately owned. We do say that
technically and functionally it is equivalent to .com.au

Customers what something that works and good service. We provide this. 

And as far as official is concerned Jon Postel has endorsed .au.com:
----------------
>From postel§ISI.EDU  Fri Jan  2 00:31:41 1998
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 00:31:41 -0800 (PST)
From: Jon Postel <postel&#167;ISI.EDU>
To: iana&#167;ISI.EDU
Subject: NetRegistry

Giles:

I am not familiar with the Melbourne IT contract and so can give no
advice on the issue of your involvement in the "com.au" domain.

I do think that alternative names should be available, so I
do encourage the development of the "au.com" domain.

--jon
----------------


_____________________________________________

Larry Bloch                   
Chief Executive Officer       
NetRegistry Pty Limited       
email:  larry&#167;netregistry.au.com
Office: +61-(0)2-9555 6299
Fax:    +61-(0)2-9555 5808

http://www.netregistry.au.com
Domain House, PO Box 2088, Sydney, NSW 1043
_____________________________________________