> I suppose this is another typical example of auDA's
> lack of foresight.

More accurately, is a typical example of auDA's good foresight combined with
their good understanding of the law - in both of which they were and remain
ahead of some of the posters to this list.

auDA got the issue of other people registering similar names right.  The
crucial points are:

* The ACCC is the appropriate body if you have a complaint - not auDA.
* auDA has no grounds for complaint, as any use of sites with similar names
has no detrimental effect on auDA's operations.  If someone else (i.e. a
domain name registrant) has been misled by the operations of sites with
similar names to auDA or AUNIC, then THAT entity has grounds for complaint
to the ACCC.



BTW, for those wondering where the information on the generic names prices
came from or was / is available, what happened was this:

auDA outsourced the operation of the auction to stuff.com.au.  The results
of auctions were supposed to be private.  stuff.com.au stuffed up and the
results of some of the completed auctions were visible on the stuff.com.au
website.  I believe that stuff.com.au has fixed the problem and the results
are no longer visible.

So auDA outsourced the auction process to a supposedly experienced company,
and that outsourced company apparently boo-booed.  Its more a case of "if
stuff.com.au can't run this sort of thing it should probably be made public
in the major newspapers / media so that others realise they maybe they're
not the best company to use for this sort of thing".  Its just a shame that
auDA happened to be the one that was using stuff.com.au's services when it
was discovered that stuff.com.au had a problem.


I see from AUNIC that westuffedup.com.au is unregistered - perhaps
stuff.com.au should change their name.


Regards, Mark

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