I am glad to see some debate on this issue.

A couple of responses to points raised.

"DNS is not a directory"

DNS is not a directory service but it is as good as we have at the moment.
Australia has the opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the US and maintain
the usefulness (and commercial value) of DNS. Linking the DNS to an open
directory regime will greatly add value to DNS and improve end users ability
to find what they are after. This is probably one of the reason e-commerce
fails to take off.

"Every body uses search engines"
Search engines have no means of advising the user on the authority of a
particular site to represent an organisation.
DNS has that potential if we look after our DNS space.

I used to work in the airline industry. In the late 70s and early 80s, many
travel agents where connected to airline networks to make books (e-commerce
B2B). Qantas made a killing by selling a package that managed the
presentation order of flights between destinations on the basis of
commercial agreements between airlines. If Qantas and Singapore airlines
were out of sorts, SQ flights would not appear or only appear on the last
page of fight availability displays. The same thing will be done with search
engines. If there are dominant search engines, they can black mall companies
into paying for presentation order. Australia is likely to lose out here.

"I can get any old US domain name for $20"
And how much is worth? Nothing. You'll put it in your sig and get half a
dozen hits to you home page. You are getting what you pay for. Remember the
first time you saw a company domain on a business card. Like the quality of
the printing of the card, it added to the facade the bearer was presenting
of a real company switched on to the net. These days it means nothing if its
a .com and something a little less nothing if its a com.au. But at least a
com.au does means something thanks to how its been maintained. 



David Bernard
Lead Architect
IP Planning And Architecture
Cable And Wireless Optus 
Phone: +61 2 9342 1203
Email: David.Bernard§cwo.com.au