Quoting Ian Smith on Tuesday September 16, 2003:
| 
| I'd say, from AuDA down!  This silly 'free offer' AuDA push marketing is
| bound to produce the sort of schemozzle we're seeing just the start of.
| 
| Does 'the regime' exist to serve domain registrants, or 'the industry'?
| Every step along, the answer seems to be ever increasingly the latter.

I have to find myself sort of nodding and agreeing. 

I don't see why .id.au domains should be given out for free -- although
I would like consumers to know their choices and ability to register
one.

I don't see why they should be renamed to "web names".

I don't even see why the non-contestable part of .au (registry) needs
the kind of marketing (sales-driven rather than consumer-awareness) that
we are seeing today.

I can see exactly why all these things are happening if those pure aim
is to sell as many .au domains as possible, but I don't think that is
the best aim for the community.

Ideally, .au should prosper (and ultimately, the "industry" will
prosper) if it just offers a better product than the alternatives -
which are not getting a domain name and getting a gTLD. The role of
advertising should be that of the registrars, and the obligatory policy
and central technical functions should operate leanly with the ability
to adapt to cost savings and new technologies.

However I think a core part of getting this type of adaptable regime
operating would be to have a core non-profit monopoly (presumably auDA)
running the registry, rather than tendering out to a company.

There is no obligation on the registry (as far as I know) to deploy
IPv6, to run a DNSSEC testbed, to share operational experience with
other ccTLDs or standards groups, or to invest any further effort into
improving the DNS beyond the bare minimum needed to fulfil the current
contract. In the current system auDA can only make its wishlist once
every 4 years. On the other hand, other ccTLDs that run the registry
in-house are on the ball with this stuff and have deployed or are poised
to.

Unfortunately this world-view is at complete odds with the considered view
of the Competition Panel of 2000.

My 2c.

kim

ps. This isn't a shot at AusRegistry, these issues would exist no matter
who ran an outsourced registry.