The following is my submission and suggestions for the auDA 2010 Names Policy Panel review process currently being undertaken. 1A QUESTION a. Should the restriction on registrants being Australian (or registered to trade in Australia) remain in place? 1. Yes the Australian ownership provisions should not only remain, but be more rigidly enforced. 2. Foreign ownership of an Australian registered company or Australian Trademark should be the only legal means a foreign entity can own or control an Australian domain. 3. Links to the criteria for Australian Domain Ownership should be clearly and plainly displayed on all Registrar and Reseller Sites offering the domains for purchase. 1B QUESTIONS a. Should informal clubs and groups be allowed to register within org.au? The provisions for registration and operation of informal clubs & groups set down by the state governments should be the sole criteria.If the club is governent registered, then they should be allowed to register their legal club name as ClubName.org.au. Any additional registrations of domains by the club should be via normal criteria i.e. registration as a Business. b. Should informal clubs and groups be allowed to register within com.au and net.au (ie. relax the eligibility criteria for com.au and net.au)? Only if they meet the normal criteria applying for registration of the name. c. How should the policy rules address illegitimate registrations, such as the use of org.au domain names for commercial purposes? Severe penalties such as fines and periods of exclusion should be imposed on any wrongful registration of .org.au & .asn.au. 1C QUESTIONS a. Are current enforcement mechanisms in the .au domain space adequate and effective? No! b. If not, how could they be improved? By approaching and obtaining from the Federal government the charter to give auDA real power to enforce hefty fines, exclusions, and restrictions on defaulters. 1D QUESTIONS a. Should the fixed 2 year domain name licence period be changed? Yes. b. If so, what other domain name licence periods should be made available? 1. The registration period should be aligned with the existing gTLD's i.e. 1-10 years. 2. Existing software infrastructure could then be utilised. 3. Often gTLD's are registered at same time as original registration of .com.au / .net.au, and this would allow registrars to minimise the renewal notices needed to be sent. 4. Transfers to another registrar should attract an additional year of registration as compensation for the costs. 1E QUESTIONS a. Should a registrant be allowed to lease their domain name to another entity? Yes. b. If so, under what circumstances? As long as auDA registration eligiblity provisions are met by the lessee. 1F QUESTIONS a. Should single character domain names (a-z, 0-9) be permitted in the .au domain? NO! 1G QUESTIONS a. Should individuals be able to register domain names that relate to a personal hobby or interest? No!. Any site/ blog needed can already be catered for within the normal .id.au namespace as their personalname.id.au . Any personal interest or hobby can easily be handled as subdomain or page within the site. i.e. scrapbooking.joandoe.id.au or johndoe.id.au/radiocontrolcars.html 1H QUESTIONS a. Should .au be opened up to direct registrations? No! There is little evidence that it is required or desired by Australian businesses and would be a nightmare to administer. 2 QUESTION a. Do you have any comments about the contents of the Reserved List, and/or the operation of the Reserved List Policy? The reserved list should be checked at time of registration of domains and excluded from being registered. Any updates to the list that would exclude any existing name should be notified to the current registrant. 3 QUESTIONS a. What do you understand by the term "domain monetisation"? The usage of a domain name primarily as a means of income generation as opposed to information distribution. b. Should domain monetisation continue to be subject to specific regulation? YES! c. If so, how could the Domain Monetisation Policy be made more workable? Any legal form of monetisation content allowed by the Federal government rules should be sole criteria. d. If not, would the general Policy Rules offer sufficient safeguards to deal with bad faith registrations by domainers? YES! e. Should domain monetisation be permitted in the non-commercial 2LDs (asn.au, id.au and org.au)? Yes. Often Individuals, non-profit clubs and groups have very few methods available to them for fundraising to offset the cost of providing the website. 4 QUESTIONS a. Should the restriction on prohibited misspellings remain in place? No. Existing Trademark and Business Name laws can be applied to any offending and misleading names and their registrants. b. If so, what type of names should be protected? See above. c. How should a prohibition on misspellings be enforced? See above. Only additional information and suggestion I can offer at this time is for better communication of the CURRENT auDA policies. This needs to be done not only to vested interests, but the general public who still are very much excluded from the information that is provided by the auDA and Domain Industry. David John Underhill