At 11:31 6/05/98 +1000, vicc§cia.net.au wrote:
>the current .com.au policy have *killed* the market for international web
hosting
>in australia. literaly thousands of companies could be interested pre
olympics
>in mirroring in australia, except for the slight draw back that they cant
>get a commercial domain. then of course everyone complains there is no
content
>in australia.

Erm, sorry, but that's completely bogus. There is no actual geographical
linkage forced upon any domain name, nothing stopping (for instance) a name
in .COM being hosted in Australia - and a great many are. Saw a statistic
just the other day ( a very plausible one) that suggests that > 50% of new
registrations in .COM and .NET are from non-USA sourced enterprises.

So if you have a point to make, its certainly somewhat unclear from your
comments... :)

Simon

>
>why didnt the policy maker think about this? the only justification given
by Robert
>Elz and MIT is that the current policy keeps the registrars out of court.
surely
>a porperly constructed t&C would have a similar effect? why hogtie
everyone else
>because of the phobia of the existing registrars.
>

Don't just sit there, join ADNA or magically jump in and create a new body
that somehow gets the respect of the dns aware community, and 'go for it'
mate.

>competitive registrars would no doubt not be so cowardly.
>
>

Perhaps not. Unfortunately in a year of trying, ADNA hasn't managed to let
anyone in to compete with Melbourne IT. The CEO of Melbourne IT is on the
board of ADNA. Whether these two statements is related is up to you to decide.

With respect to your arguments about the need for there to be a heap of new
top level domains, lets see - you say that this would:

>would a) relieve name clashes b) open up the market for internationl
hosting and
>encourage more os content in australian nets. c) speed up the registration
process
>d) remove the current uncertainty from the registration process. e)
elimitate the lunacy
>of having to register a business name to bypass the name space policy.
>

Lets see: 

a) well, no, there are already plenty of spaces to register your name in if
you want to, adding more is nice, but hardly essential. Of course, if your
real aim is to want to plaster your one name over as many name spaces as
possible so that you can 'own' the name in the mindset of your target
customers, well guess what - the DNS isn't an advertising stand, despite
your assumptions that it should be open to use as one.

b) International hosting has got nothing, nada, zip, to do with domain
names. Want an example? Try doing a traceroute to www-au.cisco.com -
cisco's Australian web/ftp site. Two things you'll notice about it
	(1) no '.au" on the end - gee, didn't stop me accessing it, did it?
	(2) it's not in the continential USA, and it's not even in Australia - 
	its in Hawaii (!) - why? Because that's where Cisco wanted to put
	it, and the location of a web server has (again) nothing, nada, zip,
	not a teeny weeny little thing to do with its domain name!

c) speed up the registration process? The one thing that has nearly
universal agreement is that Melbourne IT's registration processes are
highly efficient in terms of elapsed time, and if you don't want to use
them, put your name in .
COM or somewhere else with a similarly fast registration process.

d) Uncertainty?  You're mistaken, surely - the current rules for
registering names in .com.au, while you might object to their actual
content, and while I might happen to personally agree with you, are
actually pretty darn clear. Don't supply an ACN/ARBN, and you don't expect
to get an approval. I think that's 100% clear, actually. You can predict
your chances of getting a name with nearly total certainty before
submitting your request. Sounds pretty certain to me.

e) On this, I do absolutely agree. The only outcome of the existing
situation that really makes no sense is the resulting flood of new business
name registrations for the sole purpose of getting a name in .com.au. 

	I will make the following observations about that:
	1) it's so silly that it's a killer argument in and of itself to drop the
	requirement to have an ARBN or ACN in the policy and just make
	it first-come-first-served, otherwise you're just forcing people
	to pay a state govt a registration fee in addition to Melbourne IT

	2) it actually forces people to break the law, in that a trading name
	carries with it a legal requirement that you actually TRADE under
	that EXACT name. Names registered soley to get a .com.a name
	don't count, and I can assure you that the relevant state
	registration bodies are 100% clear about why there is a flood
	of name registrations happening, and they are not not not happy
	about it. 

	3) ADNA should, for this reason alone, be reconsidering the
	existing policy and considering throwing it out in favour of FCFS
	(first-come-first-served) in my view.
  
>
>there are *no* good reasons for forcing all commercial entities through
the singular
>hoop of .com.au. by all means keep your .com.au rules but allow an
alternative,
>the current situation is out and out fascism. and has no place in a modern
western
>democracy.
>

Where did you manage to decide that the operation of the domain name system
has anything to do with democracy, western or otherwise? It is more of a
benevolent tree structure of dictatorships, which has, by and large, worked
remarkably well to date :)

Cheers,
Simon
---
Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
Email: simon§internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777