In addition to Patrick's email:

> With respect to refusing 2-letter names, the same.  The policy states:
>
<snip>

The example Patrick shows states that the domain must "Start and end with an
alphanumeric character, not a hyphen" whereas the .net.au policy states "if
only two characters long have a numeric second character." The difference
here is that the second "character" of a .com.au can be either alpha or
numeric, where in a .net.au is can only be numeric. eg ie.com.au versus
i3.net.au.

Two important points raised in other peoples responses were: broken
implementations of bind and that other domains disallow registrations in the
same manner.

These are valid points when taken in context, but not when you look at
consistency. If the bind problem is still such an issue, then isn't that the
problem of those who register the domain? and even then, what about every
other third level domain that allows 2 letters? and what difference does
changing the second character to a numeral make to the bug that's exploited?
In response to the other issue, even if other policies state two characters,
the other Australian ones don't... and it's a little unfair to be able to do
it in .com.au and not in .net.au. If it was the same across both, and there
was a valid *technical* reason not to do it, then that would be
understandable. But in the absence of any reason for the decision, and with
the accompanied fact that MelbourneIT are running the .com.au namespace just
fine with their policy, one has to assume that there either isn't a good
reason, or a commercial one.

I think this also raises another broader issue, and that is about the ethics
of the domain administration. What is essentially a free, distributed
service for the management of the Internet, has become a restrictive
commercial exercise. I agree that registrars should get a fee for management
of the namespace. But with the whole concept of the DNS system embodied in a
tiered approach, I don't see why the management of the DNS shouldn't be the
same.

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Corliss [mailto:patrick&#167;quad.net.au]
Sent: Friday, 29 September 2000 3:21 AM
To: dns&#167;auda.org.au
Subject: Re: thoughts on .net.au policy.


Aleks Husonwrote wrote:

> I'm writing to ask for opinions on the Connect .net.au policy in regards
to
> their restriction on two letter domains.

In his reply, David Goldstein remarked:

> What the rules are for .com etc I'm not sure.

With respect to refusing 2-letter names, the same.  The policy states:

"3.3 Composition of a Domain Name
A com.au domain name must:
*    Be at least two characters long
*    Contain only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9)and hyphens or a combination
of these
*    Start and end with an alphanumeric character, not a hyphen."

The rules were set by Robert Elz (who manages the .org.au space) so it's
certain to apply to that second-level domain space as well.

You might be interested to know that the 2-letter top-level domain RA.COM
recently went for only $36,740 USD through Afternic.  Another 2-letter is on
sale now.  That's CU.COM.  It could perhaps be snapped up by Commercial
Union?

You'll remember that NetRegistry got au.com and started competing with
com.au.  I suppose that's the fear here.  But I can't see somebody wanting
another country code like "uk" or "nz" to give them a domain like:

                                manchesterunited.uk.net.au        or
                                kiwifruitgrowers.nz.com.au

But you'll note that words like "com" and "net" are prohibted too.  So you
can't have:

                                brokenhill.com.net.au    or
                                brokenhill.net.com.au

Whilst I agree that approach would be pretty confusing, the ban doesn't need
to be extended to ALL possible 2-letter domain names.  I don't see why
General Electric, for example, shouldn't have:

                                            ge.com.au        and/or
                                            ge.net.au

Quite normal and very powerful, I would have thought.

Regards
Patrick Corliss
patrick&#167;quad.net.au



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