Presumably because they feel pressure from within the industry to move on
this issue as many of their counterparts have done recently (Nominet, Domainz
etc).

Nothing wrong with considering the issue, and arguably auDA has an obligation
to do so.  I just hope as per Ian's post below that a compelling case will
need to be made before any new 2LDs are created.

The experience of .us shows that some changes within a ccTLD are more than
warranted (though .us until yesterday was about as useful to the general
populace as id.au under its ridiculous 4 level structure).  On the other
hand, there are many examples of 2LDs within ccTLDs for which there appears
to be only minimal demand.  The recently approved (I think) 2LD within .nz
reserved for the maori community is one concept that may be worthy of serious
consideration...

rgds
jon



>-- Original Message --
>Reply-To: dns§lists.auda.org.au
>From: "Ginger Fish" <ginger-fish&#167;scifi-art.com>
>To: <dns&#167;lists.auda.org.au>
>Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 23:01:34 +1000
>Subject: RE: [DNS] RE: auDA to consider new names for .au
>
>
>Well said.
>
>So why would the .AU administration waste time proposing such ideas that
>have no future and that distract from the serious issues when there is
a
>real need for a code of conduct that should be enforced to prevent the
>destruction of this industry, that should be the top priority !
>
>Ginger
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ian Smith [mailto:smithi&#167;nimnet.asn.au]
>Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 10:49 PM
>To: Dassa
>Cc: dns&#167;lists.auda.org.au
>Subject: RE: [DNS] RE: auDA to consider new names for .au
>
>
>On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Dassa wrote:
>
> > |> -----Original Message-----
> > |> From: Jon Lawrence [mailto:jon&#167;jonlawrence.com]
>[..]
> > |> so who gets magpies.footy.au?
>
>Sounds silly, but in fact this question typifies the whole madness that
>new 2LDs in .au would promulgate, especially amongst those again pushing
>for such 'open slather' 2LDs, who appear not to have read the prior
>discussions and conclusions on this over the years at all.
>
> > |> I tend to agree with you that creating new 2LDs adds very little
> > value to
> > |> the .au domain space.  Lets give id.au a go and see how it
> > fares...much
> > |> the same as the recently released me.uk I suspect (ie noone wants
> > them).
>
>I agree with Jon and several other people who've said something similar.
>
> > <SNIP>
> >
> > I disagree.  There is a need for some additional 2LD's.
>
>What evidence supports this claim?
>
> > Not to put
> > anything against id.au, I think having some geographical names under
> > (state).au at a fixed cost would be beneficial and meet some consumer
> > demand.
>
>Where is any such consumer demand illustrated?  (apart from proponents)
>
> > What I don't want to see is hostnames under such 2LD's costing
> > the same sort of price as *.com.au hostnames.  I would like to see a
> > reasonable price charged for (city).(state).au and a fixed price of
say
> > $5AUD a year on any sub-domains under them as a condition of
>registration.
>
>More to the point, who gets to 'own' some city/town/village under this
>proposal?  How will they then decide who may 'licence' subdomains, and
>under what criteria?  (Hint: all this has been covered by prior panels)
>
>Since these would not be commercial operations (covered by com.au or
>perhaps .net.au), nor associations and clubs (.asn.au), nor other
>non-profits (.org.au), nor individuals (.id.au, especially in its
>recently expanded form), who and what exactly would they be to serve?
>
>There appears to be no way that AuDA is going to demand less than $11 as
>its slice of any domain names registered in Australia henceforth, as
>this is as close as the previously free .org.au domains come.
>
> > The (city) level should have strict criteria for the body
> > acting as the registry on the 3LD.  For instance the body should offer
> > registrations in a particular format that would be consistant across
all
> > the 3LD's and at a set price.
>
>The only bodies that could get district.state.au would be local councils
>and the like.  Are these appropriate bodies to become domain allocators,
>or perhaps salespeople, within their stated brief?  I don't think so.
>
> > Will most likely expand on this in a submission to AuDA.
>
>I guess you'll have researched existing such proposals such as the 'one
>city one site' (as if!) proposal already hoping to centralise control of
>communities' resources under government bureaucracies.  It's a crock.
>
> > As for other 2LD's, given the use of com.au etc, if the geographical
> > names were introduced, there may not be any need to expand in other
> > directions for some time.
>
>There is no demonstrated need for more .au 2LDs now.  The .com.au space
>remains close enough to infinite for practical purposes already, and
>there's an equal amount of 'spare space' in every other 2L domain.
>
>This whole exercise can only benefit those trying to sell more domains.
>People will register domains as needed.  With more 2LDs such as .biz.au
>we'll see the d-pushers trying to frighten people into registering a
>.biz.au for every .com.au or .net.au "before somebody else does"; it's
>purely a scam to let a few mates make more virtually unearned money, and
>apart from big companies to whom it's pennies, increased consumer costs.
>
>And why would AuDA be pushing such a proposal?  Well, there's that $11
>per domain fee, so AuDA has a vested interest in growing, not just
>managing, the .au namespace.  And perhaps there'll be more auction$ ..
>
>My bet is that the panel will be predominantly filled by people already
>of the view that we "need" more 2LDs, at least half of which will stand
>to gain financially by their implementation.  As usual, the 'public
>participation' will be a sham, and views contrary to the predetermined
>outcome will be politely but firmly ignored anyway.
>
>Bah, humbug!
>
>Cheers, Ian
>
>
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