on 21/11/00 11:26 PM, Adrian Chadd at adrian§creative.net.au wrote:

>> * a new domain space (perhaps firm.au?) which embodies the goal of .com.au.
>> All Australian businesses are allocated space within this domain strictly in
>> accordance with their business name.
>> 
>>   - State registered businesses are given businessname.nsw.firm.au
>>   - Companies, etc are given companyname.firm.au
> 
> You've just negated the use of firm.au, considering a company *will* choose
> a .com.au with brand recognition (wouldn't YOU rather be fruit.com.au
> than random-market-garden.wa.firm.au ?)

The idea is that both would co-exist. One provides a complete mapping of
businesses, the other is a fight for the best generic catchy sounding name.

As the internet grows it will be harder to remember whether you should type
telstra.com.au, telstra.com, telstra.net.au, telstra.net, telstra.biz,
telstra.tel, telstra.au.com.....

Some predictable mapping would be useful.

There used to be someone of this list who would cry "The DNS is not a search
tool!". But why not? We have a useful distributed database to help us find
the correct resource associated with a business we know the name of.

Sure random-market-garden.wa.firm.au is an ugly domain name. But
"random-market-garden" is a very ugly business name.

> 
>> * The government would meet the cost of running the registrar. I would
>> imagine this could be kept low given the lack of disputes, no accounts and
>> links to existing government databases. I'd make a stab at the cost of under
>> a dollar per name, given that Network Associates (VeriSign) charges about $5
>> per .com name in the US and makes a large fortune.
> 
> Right. Lack of disputes over what? I'd assume here .com.au would become
> red-hot in the courts once its opened up..


Why? .com in the US is a mess but certainly not filled with endless
litigation. At any rate, I probably should not even have mentioned my views
of .com.au. It is irrelevant for this idea.



Kim Davies <kim&#167;cynosure.com.au> said:

> Under your proposal then, Telstra would need to be
> telstra-corporation-limited.firm.au or some such, given that is
> its full legal entity name? If not, how do you deal with companies
> doing abbreviations and resulting in a conflict?


I certainly haven't proposed a complete solution in 50 lines of email.
Please use your imagination here.... The 'limited', 'pty ltd', etc. could be
stripped without fear of conflict. A study would need to be made of the
relevant corporation and business law to understand how certain
abbreviations might be allowed (eg. Stripping 'corporation') successfully.

The real question: would such a domain space be useful for Australia?
Technically the problems can probably be surmounted.

Ari Maniatis



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