As we reported last week, the auDA Board (au Domain Administration) have approved changes to the Australian Domain Name Licensing Rules, called “Recommendation 2”, that state, “the option to use the name of a service, goods, event, activity or premises to meet allocation rules for com.au and net.au will be removed from the .au Licensing Rules.”
Many regular businesses, company executives, domain investors, and international domain name news websites have called this move “monumentally stupid”, and “a decapitation of it’s own ccTLD”.
Last week, the renowned DNjournal.com stated, “In Bewildering Move Australia’s .AU Domain Administrator (AuDA) Decapitates Its Own .com.au SLD” and “the auDA Board Just Voted to Destroy the .com.au Name Space“.
This week, DomainNameWire.com states: “auDA Board approves changes that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to register generic/dictionary word Australian domains. …Over one million domains will be affected“.
Today, Erhan Karabardak, a former auDA board member and former auDA Chair, and IP attorney, did an audio podcast with DomainNameWire.com(.) He was one of the seven people on the au Licensing Rules Review Panel 2025 that came up with the recommended rule change, but most importantly, he was one of three who voted against it.
In the podcast, Erhan and Andrew Allemann give multiple examples outlining how ridiculous and backwards these auDA Licensing Rule changes have become and how Domain Investors have been unfairly targeted at the ultimate cost of small businesses.
Erhan Karabardak (ex auDA-Chair) also insinuates in the podcast he believes the auDA Board will “walk this back” before the catastrophe becomes reality.
WAKE UP auDA BOARD, before it’s too late.
Read our previous articles:
