Simon Hackett wrote:
> 
> At 17:54 4/12/96 +1100, Roland Turner wrote:
> >Rev Simon Rumble wrote:
> >
> >> As I said before, my main problem with your proposal is the inconsistency
> >> of having two commercial domains which do essentially the same thing.  If I
> >> want to find Microsoft Australia, it seems logical to look at
> >> www.microsoft.com.au.  To have to check www.microsoft.biz.au seems rather
> >> redundant and would probably mean most companies would go for both.
> >
> >I agree with this. Despite the proliferation of wierdo domains used by
> >Oz ISPs, I think that there is some benefit in having just one
> >commercial domain for Australian commercial users.
> 
> This cat is already out of the bag, and has long since left the building.
> 
> .COM.AU
> .NET.AU
> .COM
> .ON.NET
> .AUST.COM
> .NF
> .BIZ.AU (proposed)
> .ACN.AU (proposed)
> 
> etc etc etc.
> 
> There is not one domain for commercial australian users now. There are
> commercial australian users in all of the above namespaces.
> 
> See Geoff's recent mail about this - the point being that once one entity
> has a name in a single, flat, namespace, the choices are to pick another
> name or pick another namespace. In the internet, you have both choices (and
> they are not mutually exclusive). This is already the case. BIZ.AU is not
> materially affecting this situation. RIght now, plenty of Australian
> organizations use .COM as their "escape valve" if they don't get "what they
> want" in com.au. That will keep happening, and to some extent the more
> escape valves, the better - eventually people will figure out that the DNS
> is not a global name directory, it is a device to avoid remembering IP
> addresses by replacing them with globally unique tokens.
> 
> Yes, people use it like/as a directory. But once the first plumber has
> "plumber.com.au" the second plumber has to choose a different name or a
> different namespace. There is nothing stopping that second plumber doing
> either - or both, or registering in all the namespaces they can if they want
> to - it's up to them. The thing you are perhaps not seeing is that there is
> no huge problem with this. If a customer can't find you, it's YOUR problem
> as a business to find a way that works. If your chosen name is "gone" in
> com.au, you need to find another name or another namespace. I don't think
> .COM (the de-factor escape valve for this) will keep being a great choice
> for much longer - do you?
> 
> Simon
> ---
> Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd
> 31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia
> Email: simon§internode.com.au  Web: http://www.on.net
> Phone: +61-8-8223-2999          Fax: +61-8-8223-1777
Hi Simon

You said that many people are using .com as an escape valve and that
.com won't continue to be an escape valve for much longer. I'd suggest
otherwise. Since .com already has many, many more registrations people
are using it to get names which are forbidden under current .com.au
rules. When the com.au rules are similar to the .com rules 2 things will
happen. People will return to .com.au and problems on finding suitable
altenative names (from the point of the registree) for ones taken will
be considerably lessened and there would be less reason for .biz.au etc.

Warm regards
Gary