Forwarding a message from Greg Slapp:
> The comments raised by whippet are quite valid and I think that you 
> have been uneccessarily rude to him/her.

They are not valid. Whippet doesn't have any more entitlement to that
domain than any other company which passes Connect's rules for net.au.
It's First-Come-First-Served and Whippet was second. Get over it and
register a different domain.

I was not unnecessarily rude. The DNS forum is not a vehicle for pursuing
a private dispute. Whippet is using the shotgun approach - i.e. blast
his grievance to anybody who might be able to influence the outcome
his way. Witness the long list of copies ... Connect.com.au, Robert
Elz, Office of Business Affairs and Fair Trading, Federal Ombudsman,
Telecommunications Ombudsman, ACCC, Austel, the local MP and now --
the DNS forum.

> Whippet's problem should be a discussion point for the DNS forum, 
> since it highlights the lack of control or guidance being offered to 
> those taking the commercial perogative of registering a virtual trading 
> name.

Whippet's problem should be a discussion point for 2LDs such as Connect
and Melbourne IT, whether any change to published policy needs to be
made to prevent this sort of baseless dispute occurring in future. It's
nothing to do with the DNS forum.

As I pointed out, there may be a hole in the AUNIC registration code. It
seems reasonable to me that once a request for a domain is submitted that
the domain goes into PENDING state and further requests for that domain
are rejected; if there's a delay which allows two requests for the same
domain into the system then IMHO it is a bug which should be addressed.

> My concern is that there does not appear to be an avenue of appeal,
> let alone a framework for interpreting the rights of the various parties.

The domain namespace is effectively infinite, so there is little need
for avenues of appeal. If I go into a fruit market and see a nice
juicy-looking apple, reach to pick it up and somebody else picks it
up first, it's their apple despite the fact that I entered the store
first. I pick up another apple.

The com.au and net.au policies indicate that the respective registries will
abide by the outcome of any dispute agreed-to by the current domain holder.
In other words Whippet's weddings has to convince the other Weddings to
relinquish the domain name and that process has nothing to do with Connect.
Whippet can use any available means including asking politely, offering
cash or litigating. Lobbying and agitating won't work.

Nick.
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