At 07:20 AM 4/07/97 +0800, Michael Malone wrote:
>The opening words of Melbourne IT's com.au page:
>
>    "Melbourne Information Technologies Australia Pty Ltd
>     is the COM.AU Domain Name Administrator"
>
>>From their FAQ:
>
>    "Melbourne IT has been assigned a five year non-exclusive
>     delegation for administering com.au."

Thanks for this clarification. I was actually looking for somedocument or
other thing detailing the nature of the delegation. There are no other
domains that I know of where there is a "real" delegate and a kind of "sub
delegate" in the same domain like this.

The issue of what constitutes a  delegation and what authority is passed to
a DNA in order for it to operate is pretty central to the policy issues.

>So if ISOC wants to sit back and say "COM.AU only", M-IT
>may decide to respond "go away and sort it out". Robert Elz
>may override that decision, and assign other DA's to COM.AU,
>but I very much doubt that he would do so.  We move forward
>only through cooperation with the current DA's.

For the moment, ISOC-AU does say "COM.AU only". That's not "never anything
else, no way, no how", but for now.

For myself, personally, I am most uncomfortable with a situation where a DNA
in a commercially competitive domain is the actual delegate for the domain.
Yes, I *know* that is the current situation and not just in .COM.AU.
However, the idea is to *improve* the curent sutuation. We are moving into
new territories of competition and commercialisation of these processes in
some domains. This new territory means thinking about new rules.

We have a right to say this, Michael. You have a right to disagree. It would
be nice if you were to address our criticisms rather than simply reject
them. Do you, for example, see where my unease at the situation you describe
is coming from? What factors do you think mitigate the circumstances?

Regards, K.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer: kauer§pcug.org.au                    +61-6-2494627 (bh)
           http://www.pcug.org.au/~kauer/       +61-6-2486607 (ah)

Join the Internet Society of Australia! http://www.isoc-au.org.au