] The agenda for the public meeting of the DNS forum, to be held on
] January 17 at the Sydney offices of Phillips Fox, 255 Elizabeth St
] Sydney 2000, is as follows :
 
 ... 
] 11:20 am      Discussion of DNS Governance Proposal
]               It is intended that this discussion formulate
]               a proposal based upon previous efforts, and
]               satisfactory to all parties
 
] 2:00 pm       Consideration of mechanics for additional
]               Delegated Authorities in existing domains
] 
] 3:00 pm       General Business
]               This will include a number of ancillary issues
]               including the proposal from IINet and Internode 
]               Systems to establish the BIZ.AU domain, and 
]               Melbourne IT's proposed modifications to the 
]               COM.AU Policies :
] 
]               A. That the Domain Name Rules within the General 
]               (Naming) Policy for COM.AU [ref. 
]               http://www.MelbourneIT.com.au/com_au/com.au_policy.html] 
]               be amended as follows:
]                                                                         
]               A1: that Rule 5, that excludes any word 'that is 
]               a common English dictionary word, such as "infinity"',
]               be amended to except (i.e. to allow to be registered) 
]               common words that are distinctive words within the 
]               registered company names or registered business names 
]               or trademarks belonging to the applicant organisation. 
]               In each case the company name or business name or 
]               trademark must be registered in Australia.          
] 
]               A2: that Rule 6, that excludes any 'generic English 
]               dictionary word indicating a class or type, such as 
]               "photography"', be deleted - on the grounds that 
]               (i) making a decision on what is "generic" is 
]               intrinsically subjective and therefore vulnerable to 
]               arbitrary decision making, and (ii) Rule 6 it is covered 
]               by Rule 5 anyway.                             
] 
]               A3: that Rule 7, that excludes any word 'that is not 
]               an unqualified Australian place name such as "Melbourne"',
]               be made more precise, by only excluding those Australian 
]               place names appearing in the list of Australian Post 
]               Codes listed in the back of the White Pages directories.
]               (That is the way that the COM.AU DNA is currently 
]               interpreting this rule anyway.)
] 
]               B. That to encourage fair competition between the 
]               DN Administrators for COM.AU, NET.AU and BIZ.AU, that 
]               the General (Naming) Policies under which they operate 
]               be identical, so that they can then cover the same 
]               market, namely that of commercial users of the Internet 
]               in Australia. (Pricing Policies should obviously be 
]               deregulated.)                     

Could we have a quick unofficial summary of the highlights of this
meeting?
__________________________________________________________________________
David Keegel <djk&#167;cyber.com.au>  http://www.cyber.com.au/  +61 3 9642-5997
Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management