On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, David Appleby wrote:

 > Thanks for the input today. It is obvious I wanted to have a bleat.
 > 
 > Surely there has to be some solution

Trouble is, for every case where it's 'obvious' (in the non-legal sense)
that there's no attempt to misrepresent or take advantage of a generic
or place name, there's one where it's equally as obvious that someone's
trying to take (unfair, in my view) advantage of use of such a name.

 > Melbourne IT refuses to register this name because the name may be 
 > misrepresented
 > 
 > I am not sure but from conversations with council, the population of this 
 > locality is less than 10 people.

I don't see the relevance of the size of the population, as if there
should be some sort of threshold below which a place is "terra nullius".

Rather, in small communities, one person registering the name of their
locality as a domain name may be seen as more likely to create problems
of at least potential misrepresentation than an obviously silly one like
sydney.com.au (though I see someone, somehow, managed to register that!) 

Generally I support the restriction on generic and place names, although
I'm the admin contact for one [placename].net.au registered years ago,
only freed from the clutches of a cybersquatter after paying baksheesh.

 > I do not expect the Council Employees to authorise the use of the name but 
 > this use of the name should be ratified at a council meeting of duly 
 > elected members from the community. This request should be accompanied with 
 > statutory declaration or the like placing the onus on the applicant not to 
 > misrepresent the name. The onus would be on the council in question to 
 > notify residents and take submissions of objections.

I don't see how a local council could possibly have any jurisdiction in
any such matter, though it might obviously wish to express its interest.

 > The applicant should have the right to commence the registration process 
 > and if refused, nobody should ever be allowed to use that name.

That sounds entirely reasonable; certainly at least 'natural justice'.
(No I'm not a lawyer either, except perhaps of the bush variety ..)

 > Further the applicant should only be able to register in the cases of .com 
 > and . net .au if their business has been in operation for a certain period 
 > of time. (Stopping the use of the business name registration. Short term)
 > 
 > I can understand the use of major place names but "a paddock" near 
 > Tamworth??

If there are people living there, I'd say it's their place ..

> tamworth.com.au.
Server:  gaia.nimnet.asn.au
Address:  203.41.52.131

*** gaia.nimnet.asn.au can't find tamworth.com.au.: Non-existent host/domain

> tamworth.net.au.
Server:  gaia.nimnet.asn.au
Address:  203.41.52.131

tamworth.net.au text = "Reserved Australian Place Name"
net.au  nameserver = yalumba.connect.com.au
net.au  nameserver = rip.psg.com
net.au  nameserver = munnari.oz.au
 [..]

 > I am not a lawyer but there has to be a simple way around this over 
 > protective area.

One would have to sympathise with anybody who has a locality named after
them in this respect :-)  Others have suggested variations on your name,
but I guess it depends on your company or business name registration. 

And there are certainly no prizes for consistency; not so far away ..

> armidale.net.au.
Server:  gaia.nimnet.asn.au
Address:  203.41.52.131

Non-authoritative answer:
armidale.net.au
        origin = ns1.une.edu.au
        mail addr = hostmaster.une.edu.au
        serial = 1999122900
 [..]
Authoritative answers can be found from:
net.au  nameserver = rip.psg.com
net.au  nameserver = munnari.oz.au
net.au  nameserver = yalumba.connect.com.au
 [..]

Just so it's clear, nothing above is to suggest that I think you have
any intention of misrepresenting or otherwise abusing the 10 good folks
of Appleby, NSW .. 

Cheers, Ian