Quoting michaelbaker§iinet.net.au on Friday November 24, 2006:
| 
| I want make a comment about the NEW who is change for .au.
| Past few days the Whois has been updated. So when you do a who is you get Aus
| Registry LINK and a msg saying visit Aus Registry.
| Now is really a BAD IDEA.. WHY?
| Because registrars will spend a lot of money advertising then a client go do a
| Whois then it tells them go back to Aus Registry where they an see over registrars.
| So basically in a nut shell we are advertising all over registrars.
| SOLUTION: To keep this fair I strongly suggest Auda considers all REGISTRARS,
| being able to add a HYPERLINK back to there websites from the WHO is results and
| to also to reconsider displaying Aus Registry, as being a company what is the
| point of advertising your competitors.

I am surprised, and also disappointed with this new change.

For starters, I think the merits should have been debated in public
before this was introduced. As far as I can tell this has been
introduced unilaterally by auDA without any room for community
discussion or input. It is being sold in an auDA press release as
"international best practice" which I find to be a dubious claim to
make.

But more importantly, I agree that the implementation is faulty. If we
are to assume it is agreed the idea of having a CAPTCHA*, and neutering
WHOIS access and replacing it with web-only access, then doing it by
providing links to AusRegistry's corporate website is wrong.

I've argued since the tendering proces began some five years or so ago
that auDA should maintain the public-facing role of the .au registry.
My fear is that the public would come to associate "AusRegistry" with
.au, rather than "auDA". This is particularly problematic given that
AusRegistry is merely a service provider to auDA that can be replaced
as its contract expires. Encouraging people to go to (and bookmark)
ausregistry.com.au only seeks to further give AusRegistry lockin into
its role, but also dilutes auDA's ability to be the clear and definitive
source for .au administration matters.

For that reason, I think it is incumbent upon auDA to use generic URLs
and website (for example rebirthing aunic.net for this purpose). I don't
see the benefit of simply directing people to AusRegistry's corporate
website.

As an implementation matter, I also don't get why the WHOIS output
doesn't have the domain embedded in the URL so I can at least just click
on it. I have to type a domain twice now, once for WHOIS; then again
rekey it into AusRegistry's website. Why not provide a link like the
following? 

  Registrant ROID:         C3043758-AR
  Registrant Contact Name: Kim Davies
  Registrant Email:        See http://aunic.net/whois?cynosure.com.au

It is disappointing to me that this new policy was introduced in this
seemingly adhoc way, and implemented the way it is. And I really don't
get the increasing devolution of auDA's role in favour of AusRegistry.

kim

* ps. auDA seems to have invented its own terminology "Image
Verification Check (IVC)". I find this also a bit strange.