Kim,

Perhaps something in between the two extremes is what we should be aiming
for.

From a purely commercial point of view I'd love to see 8 million .au names
for obvious reasons, but I do agree that there are practical and structural
implications that can be less than desirable.

What I think Vic is articulating (and if so I agree) is that we have to
ensure policy serves the customer, not what armchair enthusiasts think
customers want. From the front line, what we see is that:

 - registrants don't understand the restrictions placed on them by the
policy
 - they see the policy as useless red tape for no practical benefit
 - they want to be able to sell their names 
 - they want names to be registered in real time

Certainly requiring a business registration to identify a registrant is
useful. But beyond that, if .au has acceptable use policies, and if
registrants warrant that they have a close and substantial connection to a
domain name, I fail to see how it is the regulators role to decide in
particular instances or via policy in general if a registration infringes
the rights of another party. That's ultimately a matter for intellectual
property law and dispute resolution mechanisms.

The purpose of a regulatory environment is to ensure a level playing field,
to engender competition, to maintain the integrity and stability of .au and
to regulate industry practices and behaviours.

Much of the current restrictive policy is a response to the scammers and
cyber squatters. Those issues are largely resolved, and a loosening of
policy to meet the expectations of the market is appropriate. If this
results in a multitude of adverse practices that require auDA stepping in,
I'm sure this will happen, but if not, a progressive loosening is the likely
and desirable outcome.

It is not reasonable to persist with a series of restrictions that are
unpopular simply by claiming they hold back various bad practices if it is
not demonstrated that that is the case. My feeling is that the instance of
bad faith registrations is very small and will remain so even with a less
restrictive policy.

As for the after market, the important thing is that it is a market - IOW it
serves the needs of the market participants. Buying and selling helps assets
migrate to where they have the most value, and that's a good thing. How else
does a name not wanted by party A ever get to a deserving home with party B?
Without the after market mechanisms, .AU is undervalued because normal
market behaviour that maximises value from the assets in the market is
absent.

We have thrown the baby out with the bath water. In our efforts to prevent
cyber squatting, we have destroyed value and missed _part_ of the
opportunity to create a vibrant and meaningful .AU. 

Larry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deus Ex Machina [mailto:vicc§cia.com.au] 
> Sent: Thursday, 24 March 2005 11:43
> To: dns§dotau.org
> Subject: Re: [DNS] Searcher twists name rules
> 
> 
> Kim Davies [kim§cynosure.com.au] wrote:
> > get from my ISP.
> > 
> > And what is the end result? The .de zone contains I think 
> something of 
> > the magnitude of 8-9 million domain names with practically every 
> > useful domain name gone. If you have a company name, the odds of 
> > getting something remotely matching that name in the zone 
> is slim. The 
> > odds of getting a new name that is mnemonically attractive 
> is almost 
> > zero. The number of new domains that are 30+ character 
> monstrosities 
> > is high.
> 
> thats not really the case. nothing stops you from buying 
> names people are sitting on doing nothing with.
> 
> the reality is different names have different value, the .au 
> policy prevent anyone from realising this different value, 
> what does happen is everybody subsidises this inability for 
> secondary markets to form.
> 
> I should add auda has only granted itself the right to 
> realise differential value for domains. I would have thought 
> that what was ok for the regulator to do would be ok for 
> everybody else as well.
> 
> apparently not.
> 
> Vic
> 
> 
> 
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