On Thu, 6 Apr 2000, Lee Sanders wrote:

> Could someone tell me how a generic word such as "buy" got through INA's
> generic name policy. Actually while your at it the same applies for
> sold.com.au, auction.com.au and travel.com.au. 
> 

Tell me about it Lee! I sent a previous post but to
elaborate I have been registering domain names for
various entities for ten years or more. In the early
days you used to deal with kre directly - thats
how long I've been around.

My frustration with the whole system goes back to
the days someone with the inside running at melb uni
I believe managed to get sex.com.au. It caused an 
absolute outrage in the australian net community 
at the time who even then were trying to register
generic names.

Was it removed? No. Did they then say well you can
now register generic domain names? No. Did they
stop registering generic domain or place names? No.

You can go for sold.com.au one day and get knocked
back. Then some time later someone else will bob
up with the name. The someone else is usually owned
by a media company or a multi million dollar float
of some sort or another. You work it out.

Place names are just as bad. You can have
perthwa.com.au but you can't have limestonehill.com.au.

When I enquired about this on someones behalf I was
told perthwa is not a place name (which is just wrong wrong
wrong) but limestone hill is suburb in Qld (and is
a place name). 

The company who wanted the name is called 'limestone hill
Estate' and is a winery. I thought nothing more of it
until in the papers I see and Ad for 'ellenbrook.com.au'
which is a real estate developer selling land at, wait
for it, a suburb in perth called Ellenbrook. So they
can't even get a database of all the suburbs and places
in Australia right.

doug