] In message <199806230949.TAA26231&#167;nico.telstra.net>, Geoff Huston writes:
] >of the administrative preconditions imposed on DAs there will be incidents
] >of scam-based trading practices without doubt. The over compensation risk
] >lies in the proliferation of SLDs, and the consequent devaluation the

I think Geoff was thinking of scams by new registrars here.

Lincoln Dale raises a point about domain hoarding by (pseudo) customers:

] to my mind, one of the biggest reasons for scam-based-growth within .com/
] .net is due to the fact that you can get a domain name registered and
] delegated PRIOR to having to depart with $$$ for the service (hoarding).
] this effecively leads to hoarding.  (and then domains that expire, and then
] are hoarded again, and then expire, ... ad nauseum).

The com.au name policy puts up a significant barrier to hoarders.
A com.au DNS name must be based on a recognised (registered) company
name or business name.

It would be possible for a hoarder to buy a bunch of business name
registrations in a state.  This has two problems: each business name
must be paid for in advance (in Victoria, $70 each), and registering
a business name carries certain legal obligations.

In Victoria
   The Business Names Act 1962 requires the owner of a business to:
     * Commence business under the registered Business Name within 2
       months of registration.
     * Carry on business under the registered Business Name at all times
       as a name cannot be registered to hold it for future use.
(source: http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/DOJsite.nsf/all+by+key/OFTBABusin
ess?OpenDocument)

What this means is that if someone was hoarding domain names, in order
to do so, they would almost certainly have broken a law which has been
in existence for 25 years (in Vic), and is presumably well understood
and straight-forward within legal circles.

Prosecution would presumably be undertaken by the State (so only the
domain hoarder should need to pay legal fees), and such new-fangled
notions as the DNS and The Internet would not need to be understood
by the Court in order to render a verdict.

All that would be needed to activate this would be for a concerned
citizen to notify the authorities (and if necessary convince them
that it is worth them investigating), and the rest of us could sit
back and wait for the legal wheels to turn, without having to deal
with lawyers, courts or legal fees ourselves.

] for whatever transpires here, I think we should have a general policy to
] attempt to prevent this.

We do.
It would be very nice to also have the barrier to hoarders of insisting
on payment in advance before any domains get delegated (call it a "belt
and braces" approach), but unfortunately we seem to have slipped in this
over the last year or two.

] what this effectively amounts to is that domain name authorities themselves
] aren't permitted to act, on their own initiative, registering/delegating
] registering/delegating names that they think *might* be useful sometime
] in the future.

Hoarding by DNAs isn't something we've had to worry about much in the past
but it is a question which will have to be addressed with widespread
competition.

Maybe DNAs could donate their registration fee to some equivalent of ADNA
each time they create a new domain for themselves, to address the financial
side.  And I think someone should be making sure that they comply with
their own policies for domains they allocate to themselves.
 
] whilst some people have differing views on the current com.au policies on
] what is/isn't allowed, it, as a policy, along with an ethical-allocation
] policy by kre initially, then MelbIT/DNA, has effectively resulted in this.
] i think this is a _good_thing_.  and it should remain so.

Yes.
 
[ In answer to my own question, hoarding is an issue which must be (re)
  addressed as part of opening com.au to many registars. ]
__________________________________________________________________________
 David Keegel <djk&#167;cyber.com.au>  URL: http://www.cyber.com.au/users/djk/
Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management