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:
Feedback from various technology people is that there are a number of legal firms investigating various group action initiatives. Between the lack of international precedent for AUDA’s actions and the fact these proposed changes touch on various corporate/competition laws, it suggests this is far from over.
YES
Wonder what CarSales, REA Group and so many other corporates who have invested heavily in generic .com.au names have to say about all this?
What does Google have to say about it?
Google that bought http://www.like.com.au secretly recently, and may now need to register a BN or TM?
(ie. Google, which refuses to even allow http://www.google.au to resolve because the pure .au is such a turd of an extension, just like http://www.google.uk and http://www.google.nz – which do not resolve either)
How do corporates feel that their movements will now be easily traceable to ABR and trademark database records, that they won’t be able to acquire a .com.au domain name without first having a registered business name or domain name?
It will be very easy for competitors to track their movements!
It will be easier for domain owners (which include regular small businesses) to identity which corporate happens to be interested in their domain.
Lots of fun for everyone.
Some good points there auDA Panel and Board never even thought of.
The auDA Board need to be sacked, This is gross Maladministration of Australian Critical Infrastructure.
They never even read why auDA implemented that clause and why it also was specifically put in to STOP people and companies needing to waste time, resources and money on extra business names.
auDA Boards incompetence is globally making news…again
Insane auDA does it again!
class action would be great. May as well get rid of auDA also and just allocate domain names from ASIC when registering the business name. auDA’s existence will be obsolete and a waste of tax payers money. IDIOTS!
LOL. Great point. ASIC doesn’t need auDA
auDA Board could lead to ASIC just doing auDAs job.
Cut out the auDA middleman.
Cut out the foreign owned Registry operator also.
ASIC can run the .au Registry.
Buy your .au domains direct from ASIC.
.co.uk & .uk NO RULES – NO REDTAPE United Kingdom
.co.nz & .nz NO RULE – NO REDTAPE New Zealand
Even if these new rules are implemented, the chances of securing the EXACT business name from the ASIC registry, “is impossible”. Exact Trademarks too are never an exact match option. “It’s already tough enough to secure anything close to a required business name, securing the exact business name is impossible”. And, what of those that Drop allow to be registered following any such rule? Will they be crossing legal boundaries by selling a domain name to any buyer they fail to properly check who isn’t permitted to have via exact business name authority. How will any future profiteering by drop make the legal requirements be known before claiming others to be a victim of deception. It’s all very well to blame others for not fully understanding policy when selling to them for profit, but when a shop owner is responsible for who they sell cigarettes or alcohol to, liability rests on them.
So am I right to guess if this goes through, one solution might be if you own cars.com.au and sales.com.au and bikes.com.au would be to register a business name for $79 called “cars and bikes sales” and that will technically cover you? Will that leave the door open for business names that are 70 words long so one business name covers all your domains? 😉