.au Domain Administration
Encyclopedia
.au Domain Administration (auDA) is the manager of the .au domain
, which is the country-code top-level domain
for Australia
. It is a not-for-profit organisation, whose membership is open to organisations or individuals who have an interest in Australian domain name matters.
of Melbourne University. He devised the original policies, and was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the domain. All services were provided free.
In 1996, the operation of the popular .com.au sub-domain became too much for him to accomplish on a voluntary basis. He decided to give its operation exclusively to the commercial arm of the university Melbourne IT
for a term of five years.
The service was run on a for-profit basis. Many also argued that Melbourne IT had no right to charge for services that had been previously provided free, ultimately resulting in a class-action lawsuit filed by ISP iiNet
on behalf of all domain holders.
Disenchantment in the way .au was run also grew when times taken to process registrations or updates to domain names in other areas (such as .org.au) ballooned to months or even years. For these and other reasons, Robert Elz lost control of the .au namespace to auDA on December 12, 2001
See .oz
for the early history of .oz.au.
The result of this period of collaboration was a new self-regulatory body called Australian Domain Name Administration, or ADNA. It had an ambitious task to quickly take control of .au and operate it for the public good.
ADNA, however, was structurally flawed. The board's composition was dysfunctional, and it was easy for individuals to disturb the process. There was also a lack of buy-in from key segments of the Internet community, with a feeling the process was not open enough.
After two years of work, ADNA was recognised as a failure by most parties, and the Internet community regrouped. It asked the Australian Government for assistance, acting as a facilitator to help bridge the views of the community.
With the government on board, the organisation was renamed to .au Domain Administration (auDA) and adopted a new constitution, procedures, and board.
It began by signing memoranda of understanding with the existing registry operators, providing seed funding that allowed it to commence full-time operations and hire staff.
As part of the process, the organisation was required to obtain a reassignment of .au from ICANN
. As part of this process, it was controversially required to sign a contract with the organisation - the first such country to do so.
auDA's structure saw that all major policies, such as how domains are allocated or how the industry was structure, was given to ad-hoc policy development panels. These panels called upon experts from all related fields to sift through public comment and devise policies. The auDA board was left to ensure that these panels followed due process, and that their conclusions were sound.
The key panels of auDA that shaped the current .au landscape is the Name Policy Panel of 2000, and the Competition Panel of 2000. The latter concluded that the .au space should be as open as possible, with competition at both the domain name registry
and the domain name registrar
levels. The Name Policy Panel saw naming policy remain mostly unchanged, with the exception of the .id.au sub-domain which was liberalised.
Resulting from the call from competition, the operation of 5 key .au registries - .com.au, .net.au, .org.au, .asn.au and .id.au was put to tender. The winning bidder(s) were to operate the registry for four years. One bid, encompassing all five registries, from AusRegistry
won.
auDA also focuses its work on trying to reduce the ongoing incidence of fraud in domain name registrations. High profile cases have been brought against companies that try to trick consumers into unnecessarily registering domain names, by sending false invoices with unreasonably high prices. It scored a major success in early 2004 when a joint action with the Australian government saw key purveyors of this practice restrained by the federal court.
In mid-2004, there was considerable disruption to the .au space when some legacy domains unexpectedly expired. auDA had been announcing the renewal policy for over two years, but did not succeed in contacting some of the registrants. This resulted in chaos as registrants needed to quickly reinstate their domains when they were switched off.
The board is ultimately responsible for directing the organisation, and is selected through a vote of its members in three distinct categories:
These three groups each have one third of the contestable board positions. This breakdown is aimed at providing broad balance of opinion to the board from different sectors of the local Internet community.
The chairmanship is currently filled by an independent third party, Tony Staley
, who is a former Australian Minister for Post and Telecommunications
.
auDA's Chief Executive Officer is Chris Disspain
.
.au
.au is the Internet country code top-level domain for Australia.-History:The domain name was originally allocated by Jon Postel, operator of IANA to Kevin Robert Elz of Melbourne University in 1986. After an approximately five year process in the 1990s, the Internet industry created a self...
, which is the country-code top-level domain
Top-level domain
A top-level domain is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last label of a...
for Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It is a not-for-profit organisation, whose membership is open to organisations or individuals who have an interest in Australian domain name matters.
Early History of .au
The operation of .au began with Robert ElzKevin Robert Elz
Kevin Robert Elz, often referred to in computing circles as Robert Elz, or simply kre, is a computer programmer and a pioneer in connecting Australia to the Internet, and more recently, in connecting Thailand.-Career:...
of Melbourne University. He devised the original policies, and was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the domain. All services were provided free.
In 1996, the operation of the popular .com.au sub-domain became too much for him to accomplish on a voluntary basis. He decided to give its operation exclusively to the commercial arm of the university Melbourne IT
Melbourne IT
Melbourne IT is an Australian Internet company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange . Formed in 1996, its primary business is domain name registration in most of the major national and global top-level domains...
for a term of five years.
The service was run on a for-profit basis. Many also argued that Melbourne IT had no right to charge for services that had been previously provided free, ultimately resulting in a class-action lawsuit filed by ISP iiNet
IiNet
iiNet Limited is Australia's second largest internet service provider with over 1.3 million customers as of 15th August 2011. Their focus is primarily on ADSL-based Internet access, using their own ADSL2+ infrastructure, and reselling Telstra ADSL1. iiNet also provides dial-up and voice...
on behalf of all domain holders.
Disenchantment in the way .au was run also grew when times taken to process registrations or updates to domain names in other areas (such as .org.au) ballooned to months or even years. For these and other reasons, Robert Elz lost control of the .au namespace to auDA on December 12, 2001
See .oz
.oz
.oz is a Domain Name System pseudo-top-level domain that is used by MHSnet, the Australian Computer Science Network. .oz domain hosts that are available on the Internet have been migrated to .oz.au...
for the early history of .oz.au.
Birth of auDA
In recognition of the deteriorating state of .au, the Internet community - primarily through several key industry associations and personalities - held a series of forums to work out a way forward.The result of this period of collaboration was a new self-regulatory body called Australian Domain Name Administration, or ADNA. It had an ambitious task to quickly take control of .au and operate it for the public good.
ADNA, however, was structurally flawed. The board's composition was dysfunctional, and it was easy for individuals to disturb the process. There was also a lack of buy-in from key segments of the Internet community, with a feeling the process was not open enough.
After two years of work, ADNA was recognised as a failure by most parties, and the Internet community regrouped. It asked the Australian Government for assistance, acting as a facilitator to help bridge the views of the community.
With the government on board, the organisation was renamed to .au Domain Administration (auDA) and adopted a new constitution, procedures, and board.
Preparing the new regime
The inaugural board of the new organisation was elected in April 1999, and began the task of trying to help mould a new framework for the .au industry.It began by signing memoranda of understanding with the existing registry operators, providing seed funding that allowed it to commence full-time operations and hire staff.
As part of the process, the organisation was required to obtain a reassignment of .au from ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
. As part of this process, it was controversially required to sign a contract with the organisation - the first such country to do so.
auDA's structure saw that all major policies, such as how domains are allocated or how the industry was structure, was given to ad-hoc policy development panels. These panels called upon experts from all related fields to sift through public comment and devise policies. The auDA board was left to ensure that these panels followed due process, and that their conclusions were sound.
The key panels of auDA that shaped the current .au landscape is the Name Policy Panel of 2000, and the Competition Panel of 2000. The latter concluded that the .au space should be as open as possible, with competition at both the domain name registry
Domain name registry
A domain name registry is a database of all domain names registered in a top-level domain. A registry operator, also called a network information center , is the part of the Domain Name System of the Internet that keeps the database of domain names, and generates the zone files which convert...
and the domain name registrar
Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by both ICANN and generic top-level domain registry to sell gTLDs and/or by a country code top-level domain registry to sell ccTLDs; to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of...
levels. The Name Policy Panel saw naming policy remain mostly unchanged, with the exception of the .id.au sub-domain which was liberalised.
Resulting from the call from competition, the operation of 5 key .au registries - .com.au, .net.au, .org.au, .asn.au and .id.au was put to tender. The winning bidder(s) were to operate the registry for four years. One bid, encompassing all five registries, from AusRegistry
AusRegistry
AusRegistry is a Melbourne, Australia based company that specialises in domain name registry services.AusRegistry is the current Registry Operator and wholesale provider for all commercial .au domain names including .com.au and .net.au and the non-commercial domain names .edu.au and .gov.au.In...
won.
Go-live
The new regime of competition and name policy began on July 1, 2002. With relatively few teething problems, and a huge increase in domain registrations, the new environment was hailed a success.auDA also focuses its work on trying to reduce the ongoing incidence of fraud in domain name registrations. High profile cases have been brought against companies that try to trick consumers into unnecessarily registering domain names, by sending false invoices with unreasonably high prices. It scored a major success in early 2004 when a joint action with the Australian government saw key purveyors of this practice restrained by the federal court.
In mid-2004, there was considerable disruption to the .au space when some legacy domains unexpectedly expired. auDA had been announcing the renewal policy for over two years, but did not succeed in contacting some of the registrants. This resulted in chaos as registrants needed to quickly reinstate their domains when they were switched off.
Structure of the organisation
Membership is open to auDA, and members nominate and elect representatives to the board of directors.The board is ultimately responsible for directing the organisation, and is selected through a vote of its members in three distinct categories:
- Supply class members are companies that sell domain names or related services
- Demand class members represent end-users who purchase or use domain names
- Representative Association class members are organisation that take an interest in domain issues (such as ISOCInternet SocietyThe Internet Society or ISOC is an international, nonprofit organization founded during 1992 to provide direction in Internet related standards, education, and policy...
).
These three groups each have one third of the contestable board positions. This breakdown is aimed at providing broad balance of opinion to the board from different sectors of the local Internet community.
The chairmanship is currently filled by an independent third party, Tony Staley
Tony Staley
Anthony Allan Staley, AO is an Australian politician, member of parliament and businessman....
, who is a former Australian Minister for Post and Telecommunications
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Australia)
The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy is currently Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy. He replaced Senator the Hon Helen Coonan on 3 December 2007.-Portfolio:...
.
auDA's Chief Executive Officer is Chris Disspain
Chris Disspain
Chris Disspain is the Chief Executive Officer of .au Domain Administration Ltd and the Chair of ICANNs country code Names Supporting Organisation . Chris is also a member of the board of the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association and the Internet Governance Forum...
.