The policies regarding the issuing of domain names vary significantly
between Australia and the rest of the world.  In general:

Australia:  Rules exist for eligibility for each second level domain
(ie, what entities can get a name in that area), and also for which
names are available to an eligible entity in that 2LD (ie, for
.com.au, names must equal or be a contraction of business name;
generic & postcode place names excluded, etc).

Rest of the World:  No rules for eligibility or for name allocation -
names are issued on a first come first served (FCFS) basis.

I'm generalizing here, but that's basically the way it goes (for
example, UK has .plc which has rules, but is hardly used by anyone -
everyone prefers .co.uk, which is FCFS.  Other examples of FCFS are
.nz, .com, .net

If we believe that having rules for eligibility and restrictions on
generic names delivers benefits, then we should be able to support
that belief by showing how a lack of such rules has caused problems in
.nz, .com, .net, etc.  We should also be able to show that those
problems outweigh the problems caused by the extra complexity
generated by not having a FCFS policy for name issuing.

It would certainly help me evaluate the issues if those supporting
restrictions on generic names could provide some real examples of
existing problems from other domains such as .co.uk, .nz, .com, .net,
that would have been avoided by generic name restrictions.

Of course, one of the reasons that 'generic' names in .com.au (and in
.com, .net, etc) are overvalued, is that we have artificially
restricted the number of higher level domains.  For example, if there
are only 'books.com.au', and 'books.net.au' then they will command a
premium.  But if books.biz.au, books.store.au, books.firm.au, etc
existed, then there would be less exitement about books.com.au.

Internet real estate ain't like physical real estate - it is
theoretically inexhaustable.  I'm not recommending creating a million
2LDs under .au, but the creation of even a few more for commercial use
would significantly devalue any one generic name.  It's not a perfect
solution (books.com.au would be less attractive than it is now, but
still nice to have, of course), but it would help.

Still and all, I'd love for someone to show me some real examples of
problems that exist today in other domains that the rules in
Australian second level domains have avoided.

Regards, Mark

Mark Hughes
Director
Effective Business Applications Pty Ltd
effectivebusiness§pplications.com.au
61 4 1374 3959