Warwick A Rothnie asked:

> Is there any reason why, in a space like .com.au (for commercial entities)
> or .net.au (in practice for commercial entities), there needs to be any
> restrictions on what can be registered as a domain name provided that the
> name is not itself in breach of some third person's rights or otherwise
> likely to mislead or deceive the public?

Hi Warwick

At present, there is really no refusal in relation to the proviso part of your
question.  The testing that is performed has other criteria and is mainly done
to deter "cybersquatting".  For example, one rule says that you can only
register one domain name per commercial entity.

Now a commercial entity may be a company, business name or whatever.  Let's
say the cheapest is a business name which is $114 in NSW (I'm told much
cheaper in the NT).  The thinking seems to be that the State or Territory
authorities will make sure it's a genuine business.  And since you can only
have one domain name per REGISTERED commercial entity, you can't really
register many valuable names as a speculative investment.

However, I've worked for several NSW State authorities and can say with
conviction that they don't really monitor compliance - they are more
interested in revenue.  It would fall to the person being aggrieved to take
civil action saying they want the business name which you are not using.  That
is it is a dormant business name and so invalid under the relevant Act (in
NSW).

In any case I can't see the State authorities winning in a non-use argument as
the business name owner can argue "my business is domain name investment" or
even "my business is cybersquatting" in a Catch-22 fashion.  Personally that's
what I would argue in a Court (but then again, I'm not a lawyer).  But it
seems like a perfectly valid line of reasoning.

Interpreting the "one domain name per commercial entity" rule strictly,
Melbourne IT will not allow you to register the same domain name with and
without a hyphen.  For example, if a company wants to register the following
hypothetical domain names (which may or may not really exist, I haven't
checked):

                newage.com.au, and
                new-age.com.au

they need TWO registered commercial entities before they can do so.

Interestingly you are allowed to ADD hyphens so neither of the commercial
entities needs to have a hyphen in its name in the first place.  Which I think
is neo-Orwellian bureaucracy.

Regards
Patrick Corliss