Last night, a very lucky individual hand-registered University.com.au over at Crazy Domains.
It’s a very generic domain name. As generic as you can get.
The only small, tiny problem is…
It appears on auDA’s Reserved List Policy, alongside the following list of names:
Commonwealth Banking Federal Building Society Credit UnionI informed the new owner of this, but noted that it was VERY generic and that almost EVERY OTHER WORD or PHRASE listed under the RESTRICTED UNDER LEGISLATION section of the Reserved List Policy has been being used as a private domain name for decades by general businesses or companies. This implies that auDA have always allowed this to happen, and will probably continue to do so. For example:
Commonwealth.com.au is a private fancy golf-course-type club. Federal.com.au points to a private website. CreditUnion.com.au is owned by CustomerOwnedBanking.asn.auAnd, maybe most importantly…
Banking.com.au is owned by a private company called INGDirect.com.au and protected by Corporation Service Company Pty Ltd.My point in all of this simply goes as follows… If auDA attempt to use this outdated, and clearly non-governed policy to remove University.com.au from the new owner, they will also be forced to admit they have not bothered enforcing this policy for decades, and will also have to remove all of the above domain names from all of these other domain name holders as well, including INGDirect. So, Congratulations to the new owner of University.com.au !!!! You lucky bugger! … One has to consider how this all happened though? Did this domain name DROP yesterday, due to the current Afilias migration? And if it did, what about this section of the Reserved List Policy that states:
1.2 The Reserved List is held in the registry database. Each application for a domain name is checked against the Reserved List and domain names that exactly match a name on the Reserved List are blocked from registration.Afilias have let this domain name through, so it must have been absolutely fine to register? They didn’t BLOCK the domain name from registration… Apparently there’s still gold nuggets laying on the surface of some sections of land, if you just bother to look!
It seems to me that Afilias is making it’s own rules up as it goes along. They may have done the biggest migration of domain names but don’t seem to care about the .au namespace.
What was the point in having a Registry Tender Document that had technical specifications and policy rules when Afilias is not even following the requirements that you would assume they agreed to in their own tender response. Is they can’t comply then why were they chosen.
It has been 10 days now and there are a multitude of problems with the Afilias service.
You could forgive them for a few technical bugs here and there and we all expected them to be sorted out by now. What happened to their 24/7 technical support.
Can someone please explain why auDA has to change it’s policies to suit a new Registry when the Registry should comply with auDA policy.
The .au namespace was highly regarded, mainly because of it’s policy. Now it is gradually becoming a joke.
I can confirm that auDA does police the reserved list
They had a crackdown on a batch of names about 18 months ago (at least 3 domainers received notices, including me)
PS…..
I was advised to apply for permission for one name, but felt the name did not warrant the effort and registered an alternative
Hi Greg,
You appear to be correct. auDA do seem to have been performing checks on these types of domain names, however, I have just been informed by a very reliable source that the Reserved List Policy that I’ve quoted is an “old version”…
Whoops, I’m not perfect after all 🙂
(This is probably why I own Whoops.com.au”)
The new Reserved List Policy version doesn’t have “University”, “Commonwealth” or “Federal” on it.
So, the guy who hand-registered “University.com.au” is all good to go!
He must have bought University.com.au for around $6.50 – HAND-REG!!!
My evaluation is it’s easily worth six figures…
He found a gold-nugget just sitting on top of the ground…
Anyone in Australia could have registered it, for a multitude of reasons, yet everyone was asleep.
I love it.
It would have been nice to have “the inside running” on this change!
“This Schedule is not exhaustive and there may be other names prohibited or restricted under Australian law.”