Hello Mike,

See:
http://www.auda.org.au/about/minutes/board-200108.html

and in particular:
"The board decided that while the list of generic domain names will remain
open until shortly 
before the auction, applicants for generic domain names should be eligible
to hold the name as 
at 13 August 2001. This will minimise the opportunity for people to register
business names 
solely for the purpose of registering generic domain names. This is intended
as a measure of 
protection for those people who have applied for names in the past and would
otherwise have 
been eligible to hold them but for the restriction on generics. ER voted
against this decision."

The minutes for the above Board meeting did not appear until some time after
August.

Until that point, the auction process was only an idea proposed by 3 members
of the 31 person names panel and discussed in Attachment B of the Final
Names Panel report:
http://www.auda.org.au/docs/auda-name-eligibility-final.html#ATTB.  It was
not a panel recommendation.  

Regards,
Bruce



> 
> 
> A quick question for those qualified to give an opinion;
> 
> Could the 'conditions' placed on the application for .com.au domain 
> names in the forthcoming auction, specifically those dealing with the 
> cutoff date of August, be seen as constituting a "restriction 
> of trade" 
> or an "unfair advantage" ?
> 
> It just seems to me like they would be giving an advantage to 
> those who 
> have a business name registered prior to August, and 
> therefore possibly 
> reduce the amount of money raised by AUDA in the auction, and quite 
> possibly benefit those who were privy to knowing that an 
> auction process 
> was being planned.
> Like all of us on this list..all 327 of us..
> I'm not being sinister, I'm talking about all the mums and dads who 
> might well have been willing to take a punt and register a 
> business name 
> if they had known anything about the dns, comau or internet 
> in general, 
> prior to this forthcoming auction.
> 
> I don't have a crystal ball, but something tells me that names like 
> shopping.com.au may well be worth buying.
> Traffic costs money, it's as simple as that.
> A good generic domain can get you rank in search engines 
> based purely on 
> url.
> Generic domains are easily remembered.
> They are desirable, and people have good reason to pay high 
> prices, it 
> has been demonstrated before and will be again.
> 
> Surely an open transparent process, more representative of all 
> stake-holders is in order.
> As a member of AUDA, I want the process to be one that returns the 
> highest monetary gain to AUDA.
> Very simple and fair to all.
> 
> 
> Regards.
> 
> Mike Russell.
> 
> 
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