>Exactly.  You're beginning to understand what the Open-Slather-In-Drag
>'close and substantial' clause really means.

Well put, Ian.  Perhaps we could now consider removing this all-too-easily-avoided
and therefore rather meaningless allocation policy.  It can't be enforced
and is therefore by definition a bad policy.  

Oh and could someone explain to me how registering generic (and thereby
un-trademarkable) words as domain names is cybersquatting?  It's of course
clearly no such thing.  Some would call it warehousing.  Most would consider
it "a bad thing" (and I would tend to agree).  I would argue however that
it is an unavoidable consequence of an open market.  

You can't control warehousing using the allocation policy, as has been proven
over and over again.  You can't control it by limiting the number of domain
names per ABN/ACN/RBN as people will simply register more business names.
 I can't think of any other way to control it that wouldn't have a significantly
adverse impact on the hundreds of thousands of legitimate domain name holders
in Australia.

As has been just pointed out, all the "good generic words" will be registered
soon anyway and this will become a non-issue.  The allocation policy should
therefore be removed in it's entirety as it simply adds an unnecessary step
to the registration process which prevents complete automation of the registration
process and therefore (IMHO) keeps the cost of .au domain names artificially
high.  

Jon







>-- Original Message --
>Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:31:47 +1000 (EST)
>From: Ian Smith <smithi&#167;nimnet.asn.au>
>To: ".au DNS Discussion List" <dns&#167;dotau.org>
>Subject: Re: [DNS] Australia's luckiest man?
>Reply-To: ".au DNS Discussion List" <dns&#167;dotau.org>
>
>
>On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Dave wrote:
>
>  [NON-Text Body part not included]
>
>Ok: cutting, pasting and reindenting to get around gmail brokenness ..
>
> > > Correct... In fact, assuming "light banana" referred to the colour
of
>the
> > > paint in question, they could register "colours.com.au<http://colours.com.au>"
> > > - as it's clearly
> > > related to a product or service they provide.
>
> > Are you seriously trying to say that one entity could legitimately register
> > ALL the domains in questions - we're talking about names as diverse
as
> > toothpicks.com.au <http://toothpicks.com.au>,
> > tacos.com.au<http://tacos.com.au>and
> > taxicabs.com.au <http://taxicabs.com.au> ?
>
>Well, of course.  Wouldn't you need a toothpick to remove bits of taco
>while in your cab home?  Surely that's 'close and substantial' enough?

>
> > By your logic, if I owned a search engine, I could go and register ANY
> > available domain name as I'm providing a service for people searching
>for
> > information on toothpicks, tacos or taxicabs etc. What exactly is the
>point
> > of having any eligibility requirements if that's the case?
>
>Exactly.  You're beginning to understand what the Open-Slather-In-Drag
>'close and substantial' clause really means.
>
>Cheers, Ian
>
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