Perhaps the various Business Names authorities at a State level could
  also make a worthwhile contribution, and perhaps the ASX could provide
  some useful insights into deling with these bodies.
 
Right. So this would be a model that said the 'parenting' bodies state and
federal for business registration in general, are good candidates to be
members of, or subscribe to the principles of any ADNA-ng. 
 
  Could something as simple (or should that be complex) as allocating an
  Internet domain name as part of the process of registring a business
  name work? 

Well I think so. I've often thought that in defining a 'trading as' or 
'registered as' people should get a default assignment. I think Geoff has
pointed out some of the issues, and Hugh Irvine discussed making a .acn.au
space to tag them by ACN for uniqueness (not much social cachet maybe, I think
it sunk as a proposal but I never saw much discussion)

But you'd want to watch out for off-the-shelf company naming like seltaeb
(one of the $5 companies the Beatles used) winding up enshrined in the name.
  
  Agreed.  The more the solution integrates with other business
  activities, the more likely it is to be successful.

But I still maintain we need to watch out for creating a market in names. I see
very real risks in making them tradable entities, alas aligning with business
activities really means this. Perhaps the private price people strike between
themselves to pass a name is irrelevant to the registry, apart from normal fee.

(not like in car numberplates and vanity phonenumbers which auction for their
 exposed value, the registration authority getting the $$$)

I think it was either Simon Hackett or  Geoff H. who pointed  out that the
fee levels for things like car reggo have more to do with maintaining a huge
government department than the true cost of running the computer systems. If
there is the remotest hint in the wind of large sums of money changing hands
I suspect that the 'no taxes on the internet' argument will be lost in the
race for a slice of the action.

-George
--
George Michaelson         |  DSTC Pty Ltd
Email: ggm§dstc.edu.au    |  University of Qld 4072
Phone: +61 7 3365 4310    |  Australia
  Fax: +61 7 3365 4311    |  http://www.dstc.edu.au