I attended the auda member meeting in Melbourne on July 18, 2022. You can see some photos from the night at auDA’s Linked In post (including the one on this page).
Rosemary Sinclair and Alan Cameron gave a short but informed update on what is happening with auDA and it’s members.
Most notably mentioned was:
– There are now 172,000 Direct .au domains registered.
– There are currently 4,800 registered auDA Members.
Andrew McCallum (auDA Member Engagement Manager) asked all existing Associate Members to consider moving over to the new membership by September 27 so they would be able to vote on important matters at the next AGM as well as vote in the upcoming auDA board elections.
I met auDA Chair Alan Cameron for the first time and it was great to hear he is enjoying his role and graciously cleared up a few questions I had, which I guess is the whole point of these auDA member networking events.
I managed to have a chat with the legendary Bruce Tonkin (auDA COO) about the launch of Direct .au and we both agreed September was going to be very interesting, when the “sunrise period” of claiming Priority Tokens would be coming to an end.
It was great to see Cameron Bell from the upcoming DropCatcher.com.au there in person, meeting with various auDA members and discussing what they were looking for in a new domain name Registrar. I, of course, gave my 2 cents worth. I also happened to be talking with auDA CEO Rosemary Sinclair at the time when he was discussing his Registrar Application.
Cam mentioned he had just submitted another updated application, as requested, and answered all of the new, recently required “risk-assessment” questions that have now been introduced into the application process over the past few weeks.
Although Ms Sinclair obviously couldn’t disclose every fine detail in regards to how Cam’s application was progressing (15 months now and counting), it was promising to hear she was going to closely look at his updated submission in detail next week. I know I’m not the only person in Australia who’s excited for Registrar and drop catching competition…
I was surprised however to hear Ms Sinclair state that she was indeed the one and only person who would be approving or denying Cam’s Registrar Application. She said she would not be presenting it to the auDA board.
I’ve heard from auDA staff recently, there are around 4 companies currently “showing interest” in becoming Registrars. I believe Cam’s application is the longest running, possibly in auDA’s 22 year history? We’ll keep you updated as to the progress of the new Registrar Applications over the coming weeks.
Due to the fact that it’s been over 7 years since a new Aussie Registrar has come onto the Australian domain name landscape, many people are of course eagerly awaiting the outcome of Ms Sinclair’s Registrar Application verdicts. We recently published lots of Australian professionals endorsing Cam’s Registrar Application.
It was good to see Adam Selwood from cynch at the meeting too. With auDA focusing more on cyber security it’s great to see that cynch is working with auDA to ensure our Australian DNS remains secure for all Australian businesses.
All in all I think it was worth the plane ride from Perth to attend and I’d recommend attending an auDA Member Meeting in your city if you get the chance and are mad-keen on talking all things Australian domain names. I’m sure all the attendees at this Melbourne event appreciated the updates, fancy nibble-food and a beer or wine (or two, and I even witnessed some people having three!).
