Aleks Husonwrote wrote:

> I'm writing to ask for opinions on the Connect .net.au policy in regards
to
> their restriction on two letter domains.

In his reply, David Goldstein remarked:

> What the rules are for .com etc I'm not sure.

With respect to refusing 2-letter names, the same.  The policy states:

"3.3 Composition of a Domain Name
A com.au domain name must:
*    Be at least two characters long
*    Contain only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9)and hyphens or a combination
of these
*    Start and end with an alphanumeric character, not a hyphen."

The rules were set by Robert Elz (who manages the .org.au space) so it's
certain to apply to that second-level domain space as well.

You might be interested to know that the 2-letter top-level domain RA.COM
recently went for only $36,740 USD through Afternic.  Another 2-letter is on
sale now.  That's CU.COM.  It could perhaps be snapped up by Commercial
Union?

You'll remember that NetRegistry got au.com and started competing with
com.au.  I suppose that's the fear here.  But I can't see somebody wanting
another country code like "uk" or "nz" to give them a domain like:

                                manchesterunited.uk.net.au        or
                                kiwifruitgrowers.nz.com.au

But you'll note that words like "com" and "net" are prohibted too.  So you
can't have:

                                brokenhill.com.net.au    or
                                brokenhill.net.com.au

Whilst I agree that approach would be pretty confusing, the ban doesn't need
to be extended to ALL possible 2-letter domain names.  I don't see why
General Electric, for example, shouldn't have:

                                            ge.com.au        and/or
                                            ge.net.au

Quite normal and very powerful, I would have thought.

Regards
Patrick Corliss
patrick§quad.net.au