] On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, David Keegel wrote:
] 
] > To put this in context, I think there are three (orthogonal?) properties 
] > of domains which accept registrations from unrelated entities :-
] > 	1. whether the domain has a chain of authority back to IANA
] > 	   (which we seem to be calling "official")
] > 	2. whether registrations/delegations are portable.
] > 	3. this property, of being delegated by the parent for the
] > 	   purpose of taking registations from unrelated entities.
] > 
] > Domains like AUS don't have property 1, and do have property 2.
] > I'm not sure whether property 3 makes sense in this context, but if
] > there was a COM.AUS for example then it would have property 3.
] > 
] > Domains like aust.com have property 1, but not property 2 or 3.
] 
] Strictly speaking, until competition is introduced into com.au (or net.au
] for that matter), these are not that different from aust.com in that you
] cannot take the actual delegation from INA (or CCA) to someone else.  Also,
] if domain registration/delegation business of aust.com is separated from
] any other business conducted by the owner, why shouldn't it be portable
] (after all CCA is morally obligated to operate net.au in this manner)?

OzEmail is the (exclusive) seller of aust.com names.  My understanding
is that they will not delegate a *.aust.com name unless you use OzEmail
name servers, which I believe means that you must use OzEmail as your
ISP.

I don't think OzEmail try to hide this at all, but unfortunately it
seems rather difficult to get any hard information from their www site,
I presume their business model requires talking to a sales person on
the telephone to find out any real information.

In short, the point is that aust.com is not separated from other OzEmail
business, and thus aust.com domains are apparently not portable, in
contrast with aus.com, au.com, com.au, com, where they don't care who
your nameservers are or who your ISP is.
__________________________________________________________________________
 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