>_From: Leni Mayo
> 
> Rick Welykochy wrote:
> 
> > (*) *.au domains will go on forever ... they are THE sanctified
> >     TLD's in Australia
> 
> Like many others I have a gut feel that some domains are "official"
> while others aren't.  It might be interesting to elaborate on what
> this means.
> 
> Rick points out that no fees need to be paid to renew the domain.
> That seems to be a necessary condition, but not sufficient.
> 
> There needs to be a chain of delegation authority from IANA.  Again,
> necessary, but not sufficient.
> 
> Continuing to mull...

all domains have a chain of delegation authority if they are under
a root server. if I sell sub domains under my domain cia.com.au this
is no diferent from someone like INA/MIT selling domains under .com.au.
the transfer/ownership endowded on the purchaser is a different story.

there is absolutely no difference whatsoever between the delegation
authority in .au.com and .com.au both are selling domains for commercial
benefit. an amazing amount of fear uncertainty and doubt spews forth
from .com.au keepers regarding .au.com reminiscent of the business practices
of ibm in its heyday.  these marketing tacticts are quite tragic.
as much as they want to tell you there is something magic or special
about .com.au its just not true.

Vic