history

This page looks at the history of auDA and its predecessors in management of the dot-au space.

It covers -

• auDA's early predecessors
• MelbourneIT - the first commercial registrar
• the rise and fall of ADNA, the first industry body
• the auWG - consensus-building for creation of auDA
• establishment of auDA
• redelegation - transfer of trusteeship from Elz to auDA
• interpretation - themes and issues in administration of dot-au
• studies of auDA and ccTLD administration

     early predecessors

In the early 1980s Australian universities gained a permanent email connection to ARPANet, the US defence-aligned research network discussed in our profile of the web's evolution. The link reflected development by local universities and the Commonwealth Scientific & Industry Research Organisation (CSIRO) of the Australian Computer Science network (ACSnet) and CSIROnet, two private computer networks.

In March 1986 the establishment of a dot-au TLD was approved by the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute and responsibility was delegated by Jonathan Postel (embodying what was later formally established as IANA) to Robert Elz of Melbourne University.

That delegation reflected delegation of responsibility to administrators in other national domain spaces, with academic and government institutions in around 240 countries becoming responsible for creating policy and registering domains in their respective spaces.

Delegation was not reflected in Australian legislation or US telecommunications law. The Commonwealth government - like its overseas counterparts - at that time was not closely involved in management of the net.

That's unsurprising, as the net was seen essentially as a noncommercial network under the auspices of what became the Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet), described in Geoff Huston's Engineering a Connection to AARNet (PDF). AARNet was commissioned in May 1990, with connections to an estimated 85,000 computers by 1993.

In 1990 Elz delegated some of his responsibility to the Australian National University's Geoff Huston, who handled the 'edu' 2LD and the 'gov' 2LD. Huston was the Network Technical Manager of AARNet, a founder of the Internet Society's Australian Chapter (ISOC-AU), subsequently a senior internet executive with Telstra and author of works such as Internet Performance Survival Guide (New York: Wiley 2000).

Elz developed rules for the various Australian 2LDs (although there was subsequent criticism that those rules were not readily accessible) and managed the other 2LDs, which included a 'com', 'org', 'oz', 'id', 'otc', 'net', 'telememo' and 'csiro'. Registrants were not charged for domain registration and registry services.

During the mid-1990s the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee transferred commercial aspects of AARNet to Telstra. At the same time, in the face of growing demand (and perhaps reflecting criticisms that in 1994 there was a registration backlog of up to six months), Mr Elz delegated administration of the 'net' 2LD and the new 'asn' 2LD to contacts in two ISPs. 1993 proposals for an Australian Internet Registry (AIR) company as a non-profit operator of the AUNIC registry apparently did not progress.

     Melbourne IT and the 'com' 2LD

Most growth occurred within the 'com' 2LD, which for example climbed from 521 registrations as of 13 February 1995 to 2,573 on 4 November of that year and 3,937 on 12 February 1996. During 1996 Mr Elz accordingly delegated responsibility (in the form of a non-exclusive five year licence) to Melbourne IT, a subsidiary of Melbourne Enterprises International—the commercialisation arm of Melbourne University.

Melbourne IT gained accreditation from ICANN in 1999 as one of five registrars of dot-com, dot-net and dot-org names. It was floated in that year, reaching a market value of $350 million at the height of the Australian dot-com boom and expanding overseas. As of February 2003 Melbourne IT had become one of the top twenty gTLD registrars. It is discussed in more detail later in this profile.

Changing perceptions of the nature of domain names and administration of the DNS were reflected in Melbourne IT's introduction of fees for domain registrations - criticised by some as antithetical to the 'spirit of the net' - and announcement that it would remove existing 'com' 2LD names whose registrants hadn't paid the fee.

The announcement resulted in class action litigation against the company. A fee for initial registration and renewal is now well established, contrary to notions that registrants 'own' a name in perpetuity.

     ISOC-AU and ADNA

The Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU) held its inaugural general meeting in November 1996. Its founding board of directors was Hugh Irvine (Director of ISP connect.com.au), Associate Professor Bob Kummerfeld (University of Sydney) and Geoff Huston (by then Technical Manager of Telstra Internet).

Huston commented that

This is the Society for everyone. We want this body to be relevant to the very broad base of Internet users, publishers, developers and others who make the Internet what it is today. There are plenty of organisations for business; this one is for people. If you use the Internet and are interested in the things that affect its development in Australia and the world, the Internet Society can be your voice.

During the following year the Australian Domain Name Administration (ADNA) was established as a nongovernment, internet industry body to explore policies for managing the dot-au space.

Its initial members were the Australian Internet Alliance, the Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG), the South Australian Internet Association, Tradegate Australia (an EDI group), the Western Australian Internet Association and the Internet Industry Association of Australia (INTIAA) - the predecessor of the Internet Industry Association (IIA).

ADNA's object was to "ensure the operation of a functional Internet naming system for the .au domain. There was an understanding that Mr Elz was sympathetic to its establishment. Its Board was elected by the members, with directors serving in a voluntary capacity.

Increasing commercial interest in the net and recognition of its economic significance meant that policy questions received progressively more government attention, particularly since ADNA's authority was not recognised and some of its proposals were strongly criticised.

     and the auWG

Work by ADNA was inconclusive, inhibited by -

• criticisms from stakeholders such as the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (AVCC, coordinating AARNet and particularly concerned with the dot-edu 2LD), CSIRO (administering the dot-csiro 2LD) and the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU)
• attacks by individuals
• suggestions that the dot-au space should be administed by the national government - eg by the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) as the agency responsible for telecommunications addressing or by a body such as ISOC-AU (using the dot-nz model where ISOC-AU's counterpart was responsible for policy, the registry and registrar activity)
• what might be considered as 'destabilisation' by some commercial interests.

Examples feature in the online ADNA archive (continued in the DNS list archived here and discussed in the 2004 paper Redefining Citizenship? - Internet Governance, National Citizens and Expectations of Representation), contemporary newsgroups and media coverage. The vehemence of criticism in many instances was inversely proportional to support by a substantial community of interest.

Expectations of early competition in dot-au registration services were thus not met. In November 1998, following requests by the ADNA Board, the federal government's National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) sponsored an .au Domain Summit in Melbourne. The event was attended by fifty "representatives of the Internet community in Australia".

The summit agreed that the "Australian Internet community should establish a self-regulatory regime" with responsibility for the dot-au space, taking over from Mr Elz.

NOIE was to prepare discussion papers covering the responsibilities of the new policy/administrative body - reflecting the federal emphasis on public-private sector 'co-regulation' - and legal issues, subsequently addressed through changes to the telecommunications legislation highlighted on the preceding page of this profile.

Action would be progressed by a dot-au Working Group (the auWG) established under Commonwealth auspices to develop an organisation that would become responsible for policy development and administration. The target for establishment of that organisation - a not-for-profit nongovernment company "vested with the responsibility of operating the .au domain for the benefit of all stakeholders" - was April 1999.

The AuWG comprised representatives of NOIE, the community sector, the Internet Industry Association, domain registration businesses, ADNA, ISOC-AU, ATUG, the AVCC and CSIRO. Some idea of the shape of debate - disfigured by personal vilification and excursions into the wilds of alternative root schemes - was the request that as part of the auWG consultation people forward "reasonable and relevant" suggestions.

A December 1998 media release from NOIE indicated that

There is widespread agreement that the current administrative arrangements are no longer appropriate and that the .au domain space should be managed by an Internet self-regulatory body which is responsive and accountable to both the demand and supply sides of the Internet community.

NOIE has agreed to facilitate the creation of a new Internet self-regulatory regime and manage the transfer of authority from Robert Elz to the new regime.

     establishment of auDA

The auWG reported to NOIE in March 1999, presenting a report about consultation with major stakeholders and proposing a constitution for the new body.

In the following month a special general meeting of ADNA adopted the proposed constitution, changed the organisation's name to .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) and elected an interim board of Directors. Individuals or organisations - among them Caslon Analytics - became members.

Within Australia the move reflected introduction of competition in the provision of telecommunication services (accompanied by part-privatisation of Telstra, the former monopoly telco) and an emphasis on industry self-regulation.

It also reflected a global trend, away from a small number of skilled technicians and towards more formal - often more consultative - administration by specialist agencies. NOIE had played a significant part in the establishment of ICANN.

     redelegation

In November 1999 Mr Huston agreed to transition the AUNIC central registry to auDA, which (as noted later in this profile), sought expressions of interest for hosting the dot-au registry in January 2000. Mr Elz delegated responsibility for the 'com' 2LD to auDA in November 1999.

However, he did not relinquish responsibility for the other 2LDs or formally hand over responsibility for the overall dot-au space, apparently considering that it was appropriate or necessary to remain as 'trustee' until auDA had proved itself. Contact regarding the trusteeship was problematical. Similar difficulties in transition from a single delegate to a formal body are evident in South Africa, Kenya and other countries.

In February 2000 NOIE's chief executive, as chair of ICANN's international Government Advisory Committee (GAC), wrote ICANN on Principles for the Delegation & Administration of Country Code Top Level Domains. That letter was a landmark in formalising relations between national governments and ICANN regarding responsibility for ccTLDs.

In the same year auDA's operation was underpinned by the federal Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Act 2000.

In September 2001 auDA was formally recognised by ICANN as the suitable operator for the dot-au space, with redelegation of responsibility to auDA from Mr Elz. That recognition followed a report by IANA in August 2001.

ICANN commented that

Although the .au ccTLD has developed well to date under the personal stewardship of Mr. Elz , to achieve its future potential it should be managed by an organization formally accountable to the Australian Internet community. As noted in the U.S. Government's White Paper, "Internet names increasingly have commercial value" so that decisions about DNS policies and structure "cannot be made on an ad hoc basis by entities or individuals that are not formally accountable to the Internet community." The White Paper made this observation in 1998 to support the migration of the IANA function from the personal stewardship of Jon Postel to the more formalized structure of ICANN. Today similar considerations support migrating the .au ccTLD delegation from Mr. Elz to a formally accountable organization

Move to to formal arrangements based on institutional rather than personal responsibility reflected similar changes in many countries, for example establishment of Nominet in the UK and CIRA in Canada.

Perspectives are provided in the 2002 paper by Kim von Arx & Gregory Hagen on Sovereign Domains: A Declaration of Independence of ccTLDs from Foreign Control, their Patriation of the .ca or the Industry Canada paper on dot.ca. John Selby's 2007 A NIE Analysis of the governance of the .au Domain Name Space (PDF), Liz Williams' 2002 The Domain Name System: ICANN and its Relevance to Pacific Island Nations (PDF) and her 2003 paper on Internet Governance in Australia: Modelling Self-Regulatory Structures in the Domain Name System, along with the 2003 NOIE paper (which used an earlier version of this page) provide coverage closer to home. Problems are highlighted in 2003 papers for the ITU regarding dot-ke and dot.nu.

     interpretation

The dot-au space has followed a trajectory of normalisation, from -

• an academic resource through what Schiller describes as irrational exuberance to something that is as mundane (and, for most Australians, as ubiquitous) as the telephone.
• a network managed by a handful of engineers, with few explicit policies, to a space administered by a broadly representative body with comprehensive and accessible policies

From a regulatory perspective that trajectory featured -

• questions about the role of government, representative private sector bodies and individuals in managing a resource that affects most Australians
• movement towards transparent, consistent policy making and policy implementation
• conflict between vested interests - whether in committee rooms, public events, newsgroups and the 'old media'.

It is thus of interest regarding the broader management of cyberspace and the new economy.

     studies

There have been no major academic studies of auDA or of the dot-au space. They are discussed in a forthcoming book by Bruce Arnold.

Pointers to ccTLD administration are provided in the Domains & the DNS profile, for example papers presented at the 2003 ITU Workshop on Member States' Experiences with ccTLDs and dissertation by Liz Williams which acknowledge input by Caslon, and Daniel Pare's study of Nominet (the dot-uk administrator).

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