] You, Lesli Berger, shaped the electrons to say:
] +
] +Although I may agree that certain swear words should not be allowed to
] +be authorised as Domain Names in Australia, in my mind it is ludicrous
] +to reject domain names such as www.cat.com.au and www.dog.com.au, simply
] +because "cat" and "dog" are dictionary words. Why does this limitation
] +exist in Australia and not in the U.S?

In my mind there are two major reasons why there is a lot more litigation
over domain names in com than there is in com.au, each of which contributes
at least an order of magnitude to the risk of legal action.  One, they have
a much larger scope (more customers).  Two, they have essentially an open
slather policy on choosing domain names.  There is no problem with a single
individual registering the real-life name of a large company that s/he has
nothing to do with (or more interestingly, is a competitor of).

Skeeve Stevens writes:
] 	At the moment there is a working group which is putting together some
] papers about the creation (for lack of a name) a Domain Name Authority for
] australia, which the government would rubber stamp, and which would control
] the overall .au namespace.

(This isn't directed at Skeeve, whom I thank for posting a mini-summary of
the DNS Forum meeting, but rather at the DNS Forum participants generally.)

Wouldn't this muddy/confuse the derivation of authority for the DNS, if
it was seen that a local government (ie: non-global in scope) had the
authority to bless an organisation with control of a small piece of the
DNS without reference to the IANA or its delegated authority for the *.au
piece of the DNS (ie: Robert Elz).

If there is going to be rubber stamping going on, I would feel much
happier if kre was the one doing it, since he is the one in charge,
until the IANA says otherwise.  If some other local government or local
associaton wants to bless it AS WELL, that's fine.  The DNS is a part
of the global Internet, not a part of any particular country.
__________________________________________________________________________
David Keegel <david&#167;keegel.wattle.id.au>  I speak for myself, no one else.