Vic,

>why is the job of the registrar to determine if its a "phony"
>bogus dodgy or fly-by-nighter from the real thing?

snip

>registrars take application on good faith, susbequent problems
>are solved by proper t&cs inc limitation of liability. if we could
>stop trying to get the registrars trying to play god, life would be so much
>easier for everyone involved.

We're in complete agreement I think.  Unless the validity checking can
be completely automated, then like you, I think it should be handled
by proper terms and conditions, and the User warranting that the supplied
info is correct.

But for any SLD which has conditions on either which users can get a name,
or conditions on which names will be approved (and that currently applies to
all the .au SLDs) there have to be clear unambiguous policies and processes,
else having the conditions is pointless.

Regards, Mark