Paul

You have made fair points.

However, there can be significant costs and risks in acquiring a company or
other business for the purpose of acquiring a domain name licence.  As a
matter of good management, to minimise these costs and risks would require a
measure of due diligence on the part of the acquirer (costly in itself) to
ascertain the nature and extent of any liabilities (e.g. tax or contingent),
obligations, etc. of the business under the laws of Australian States,
Territories and the Commonwealth, and any other jurisdiction for that
matter.

In general, a less complex and more economical way would be to not inhibit
or enable the transfer of domain name licences.

Regards

Ian Johnston

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Foxworthy [mailto:paul§cohsoft.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, 25 January 2002 10:38 AM
> To: DNS
> Subject: Re: [DNS] Is auDA auctioning non-transferable or transferable
> domain name licences?
>
>
> At 09:41 AM 25/01/2002 +1100, Ian Johnston wrote:
>
> >The question of whether domain name licences are transferable or
> >non-transferable is an important one, particularly for those bidding at
> >auction.
> >
> >Under the current scheme a licence to use a com.au domain name cannot be
> >transferred or sold to another party.   Licence terms and conditions
state
> >that the domain name may not be sold, lent or used by any party other
than
> >the licensee, and the domain name may not be transferred from the
> >licensee to another party.
>
> If you've registered a business or company name corresponding to
> the domain name, you just sell the business, not the domain name.
> When the only asset of the business is the domain name, that's not
difficult.
> Doing it this way has the virtue that the connection between the business
> name and the domain name remains the same.
>
> Anyway, at least in July 2000, Melbourne IT had a "Termination and
Reapply"
> form they issued which asked them to deregister the name and re-register
it
> to somebody else. In theory there's a period in between when somebody else
> could ask for it; in practice that period is short so it's a de facto
transfer.
>
> I don't know if the "Termination and Reapply" form is still in use or not.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul Foxworthy
>
>
> ---- Coherent Software ------------- http://www.cohsoft.com.au/ ----
> For interactive Web sites, databases, software, animation
> Aust. Family History Compendium at http://www.cohsoft.com.au/afhc/