The heading "INET: COM.AU Renewals not needed" of Michael Mallone's
recent message to the mailing list is potentially quite misleading, and
should be ignored. 

The Federal Court Judge yesterday refused to hear iiNet's application
for an interim injunction, because of the late service of documents and
Melbourne IT's offer to extend the deadline for outstanding renewal
payments to 17 April (and we now offer 30 April, as the Federal Court
hearing has been set for 18 April). 

Some of you will be aware that commencing before, and independent of,
iiNet initiating its costly court action, Melbourne IT started
constructive discussions with Pauline Van Winson of ISOC-AU and Luke
Carruthers of INTIAA concerning an optional alternative approach to the
treatment of the 'historical' domain names registered before Melbourne
IT commenced its role on 8 October 1996 as com.au administrator.
 
It is expected that this agreement - which is awaiting ratification by
the ISOC-AU membership - will be confirmed and announced on Monday 17
March. I note that Michael Mallone is seeking to claim credit through
his court action for changes that were already close to agreement
between Melbourne IT and the principal Internet industry associations,
working co-operatively and amicably togather, at the time he launched
his court action.

As his court action makes serious and unfounded allegations against
Melbourne IT, we will continue to strenuously defend our position in the
courts, and in particular to defend the industry-endorsed policies under
which we operate.  

PG
---
Professor Peter Gerrand
CEO, Melbourne IT

___________________________

Michael Malone wrote:
> 
> As most of you already know, iiNet has been seeking
> an injunction stopping Melbourne IT from deleting
> unpaid COM.AU domain names from the DNS.
> 
> The case went before the Federal Court in Perth this
> afternoon for a preliminary hearing.
> 
> As a result of this action, Melbourne IT has requested
> further time to prepare, and extended the expiry date
> for COM.AU renewals until 17/04/97.
> 
> I will post more, along with a URL to the relevant
> court notices and documents, within the next 24 hours.
> 
> Meanwhile, the message is: if your domain name is
> being threatened with deregistration, you don't need
> to pay yet. Hold onto your money for another few hours
> until we've had a chance to put the documents somewhere
> that you can read them.
> 
> MM