You misrepresent my argument.  I said that persuading a client to buy a
product that's not relevant to their business or market is predatory.  A
small business that serves a local or regional market has no use for an
"international" domain name.

As regards search engines, I was referring to Australian search engines, as
distinct from a USA search engine with an Australian filter (and a pretty
useless one at that)

Ron Stark

:  -----Original Message-----
:  From: dns-bounces+ronstark=snapsite.com.au§dotau.org 
:  [mailto:dns-bounces+ronstark=snapsite.com.au§dotau.org] On 
:  Behalf Of Anand Kumria
:  Sent: Sunday, 25 September 2005 5:12 PM
:  To: .au DNS Discussion List
:  Subject: Re: [DNS] Time for 
:  therulestochangeregardingtransferring domainnamelicences
:  
:  On Sat, Sep 24, 2005 at 05:29:07PM +1000, Ron Stark wrote:
:  > By the way, ANZ *does* trade internationally. 
:  Sydneyferries.info is a 
:  > complementary domain name to sydneyferries.com.au as part of their 
:  > brand protection strategy, and I hazard a guess that the 
:  only reason 
:  > that the State Transit Authority doesn't own 
:  sydneyferries.com is that 
:  > some cyber squatter already has it.  Cityrail.info is but 
:  one domain 
:  > name to support cityrail.com.au.  The NSW Government extensively 
:  > trades overseas  - ever heard of "tourism"?
:  > 
:  > The examples you've used only serve to weaken your argument, not 
:  > strengthen it.
:  
:  No, they don't. Just to take a specific example, 
:  cityrail.info is what they use to brand themselves. None of 
:  the stickers, various large posters, etc. use the "local" domain.
:  
:  What matters is how they brand themselves? Does anz brand 
:  itself as anz.com.au or anz.com? 
:  
:  > On the other hand a small Australian business with a 
:  solely Australian 
:  > market has no use for anything other than a .au name, and 
:  to try to 
:  > sell them a .com in those circumstances is, I think, predatory.
:  
:  That's the strangest, argument I've ever heard. Convincing 
:  an organisation that a cheaper, easier to obtain domain is predatory.
:  
:  As a few people have already stated; I think you'll find the 
:  'market' no longer attaches as much importance to whether an 
:  organisation has a '.au' at the end of the name.
:  
:  Regards,
:  Anand
:  
:  --
:   `When any government, or any church for that matter, 
:  undertakes to say to
:    its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not 
:  see, this you are
:    forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and 
:  oppression no matter how
:    holy the motives' -- Robert A Heinlein, "If this goes on --"
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