I congratulate auDA and the .au domain name services industry for the
achievements in the first year of operation of the new .au scheme, as reported
by Chris Disspain the auDA media release below.

In particular, AusRegistry should be congratulated on its commercial
achievements, including the MYOB business award for 2003.

According to an article of 3 July 2003 by Kate Mackenzie
<http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,6693906%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.
html>, AusRegistry earned about $9 million in the first 12 months of the
contract ... dramatically exceeding its prediction of $6.5 million.

Furthermore, the article reports that AusRegistry ... would ramp up its
promotion of .id.au names with celebrity endorsements and by giving away 50,000
free registrations in the next year.

Having read Kate's article of 3 July 2003, a number of questions come to mind:

(a) what was the ROI for AusRegistry?

(b) has AusRegistry - a monopoly seller of domain name registry services in
.au - made 'above normal' profits?

(c) are registrars, resellers and registrants paying too much for services along
the .au domain name services supply chain?

(d) what are the implications (costs, risks and benefits) of AusRegistry "giving
away 50,000 free registrations ... in .id.au"?

(e) why should .com.au and .net.au registrants subsidise .id.au and .org.au
registrants?

(f) how effective and well managed are the price controls arrangements in the
registry licence agreement?

(g) would price cap regulation of registry services (CPI-X) recommended by the
Competition Model Advisory Panel* have produced a better outcome for .au domain
name services industry and consumers?

(* As a member of the Panel, I had a hand in writing the recommendation.  In
hindsight, the recommendation was neither well formed, nor well explained in the
Panel's final report <www.auda.org.au/docs/auda-competition-final.html>.)

These are the kind of questions which might be best answered in a
review/evaluation of the auDA scheme, including its policies.


Ian Johnston


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Disspain [mailto:ceo&#167;auda.org.au]
> Sent: 6 August 2003 5:13 PM
> To: DNS List; Announce List
> Subject: [DNS] media release
>
> .au domain registrations grow by 24%
>
> Melbourne, 6 August 2003 - auDA today published a statistical analysis
> of the first 12 months of the new .au domain name regime at
> http://www.auda.org.au/docs/ausregistry-y1-0203.pdf
> <http://public.ho.auda.org.au/docs/ausregistry-y1-0203.pdf> .
>
> The overall number of domain names in .au has increased by 24% with
> com.au registrations rising by 21% and net.au registrations by 57%.
>
> 'The introduction of competition and the changes in naming policy have
> led to this growth at a time when, in global domain name spaces such as
> .com, registrations are declining' said auDA CEO, Chris Disspain.
>
> The number of accredited registrars has increased from 9 at the
> commencement of the new regime to 19.
>
> 'This increase demonstrates the success of the introduction of
> competition into the market place' said Disspain. 'The industry
> continues to mature with the ongoing development of the Code of Practice
> and an increasing level of communication between registrars as a group,
> the registry and auDA'.
>
> AusRegistry has exceeded and continues to exceed all performance levels
> set by auDA in its Service Level Agreement.
>
> 'The registry service levels required by auDA are set to world's best
> practice standards. AusRegistry continues to surpass these as well as
> refining and updating its systems and technologies' Disspain said.
>
> 'auDA believes that this first year has demonstrated that the new
> systems are stable and secure and that the policies and framework of .au
> provide a competitive market place within which registrars can
> successfully operate and the number of domain registrations can grow'.
>
> -ENDS-
>
> For media contact:
>
> auDA:
> Chris Disspain
> Chief Executive Officer
> tel: 03 9349 4711
> email: ceo&#167;auda.org.au