From: Jason McKenzie 
Sent: Friday, 1 June 2007 9:56 PM
To: jo.lim@auda.org.au
Subject: What is the reason for the .au policy changes?
Jo Lim
Chief Policy Officer, auDA

It wasn't to long ago that Australian domain names were not accessible to anyone that 
couldn't provide a ABN, ACN or INC number etc. and a "genuine reason" for using that 
domain name, then someone went and screwed the system (Sorry but this is a polite as I 
could possible think!), for instance GRIDLOCK INTERNET ENTERPRISES ACN 122087156 
(cybersquatting company), has registered many domain names for no other reason than 
profit from advertising (and in the hope of the rules to be changed), because the 
company in question knows that many of the domain names registered have .com Australian 
websites and many people will accidentally use .au when looking for those sites, one 
for instance is fordmods.com this is an Australian run website but because of the old 
laws and the needing a ABN etc. the originator of the website couldn't register the 
.au domain of the same name, instead as soon as the laws were screwed with GRIDLOCK 
INTERNET ENTERPRISES jumped in, they have nothing in common with Fordmods etc, but 
because they had a ACN number they could register it purely to profit from others 
mistakes. Another is ozspeedtest.com with plenty of others Gridlock has registered. 
See this forum thread http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/630307.html

The best question is why was the rules relaxed for the worse, and why would we want .au 
extra to .com.au? Under the currently idiotic policy this would allow competitors to jump 
in first to destroy another company's business, example: hungryjacks.com.au   McDonald's 
registers hungryjacks.au to be redirected to their website, I know this won't happen but 
I have seen this happen with the poorly managed .com domain names.

At this time the current system works, the older system was better, the new policy will 
be destructive to Australian web based companies unless they too got onto the stupid band 
wagon of buying up all possible domain names that become available. Companies that are 
morally and ethically run won't jump into buying up domains for resale, but there is 
plenty of companies that will, and a lot of companies wanting a Australian domain name 
like their business name or type of business will then be held to ransom.

What is the reason for the changes other than a back hander to the people in question 
creating the policy? (I know that is a rough thing to say, but at this time I and 
thousands of others don't see another reason).

Thank you,
Jason McKenzie