the dot-au domain services industry

This page offers an overview of domain service businesses in the dot-au space: registrars, resellers and other players.

It covers -

• 'open' 2LD Registrars
• Melbourne IT
• the 'closed' 2LD Registrars
• agents
• industry codes
• arbitrators and other services
• scammers

It supplements the discussion of the domain name services industry in the separate Domains & DNS profile.

     'Open' 2LD Registrars

The following 2LDs in the dot-au space are open, with domain name registrations being provided by accredited registrars and their agents (resellers) -

com.au - commercial entities, such as companies (with an Australian Company Number as registered through ASIC), and businesses (registered with state governments).

net.au - commercial entities, such as companies (with an Australian Company Number as registered through ASIC) and businesses (registered with state governments).

asn.au - incorporated associations, political parties, trade unions, sporting and special interest clubs.

org.au - charities and non-profit organisations.

id.au - individuals who are Australian citizens or residents.

The currently accredited registrars are -

Anchor Systems
Bottle Domains
Capital Networks
Connect West
Discount Domain Name Services (DDNS)
Enetica
Explorer Domains
IntaServe
JustNet
Melbourne IT
Namescout
NetRegistry
Planet Domain
TPP Internet
Wobygong

Josh Rowe's invaluable comparison of prices is available here. That comparison is independent of Caslon, as is the (somewhat impressionistic) service comparison here.

Accreditation of A1 Registrar was withdrawn by auDA in January 2003.

auDA has sought additional registrars for those 2LDs. During the second half of 2002 the leading four registrars had a collective 92% market share, the next four registrars had around 6% and the other registrars shared the scraps.

In December 2004 Capital Networks failed in a Federal Court appeal against auDA, thereby allowing auDA to judge registrars based upon their activities in other fields such as delinquency in gTLD transfers. (The original judgment is here.)

     Melbourne IT

Media attention has centred on Melbourne IT, the dominant registrar within Australia and one of the top twenty gTLD registrars.

Melbourne IT originated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Melbourne Enterprises International—the commercialisation arm of Melbourne University. The University's notional investment at the time of establishment in 1996 was $350,000. Melbourne IT received from Robert Elz a non-exclusive five year licence for registration of names within the 'com' 2LD.

In 1999—with accreditation from ICANN as one of five registrars of dot-com, dot-net and dot-org names—it was believed that Melbourne IT would require an investment of $5 million. That forecast reflected demand within Australia for dot-au registrations, overseas expansion by the company as a registrar of existing gTLDs and moves towards a joint venture as registrar of the new 'biz' gTLD. At that time revenue was around $14.9 million, climbing to $43.3 million in 2000.

The University sold 85% of its holding through a public flotation in 1999. Melbourne IT's $2.20 shares reached $8.81 on the day of listing and climbing to $17 in 2000, giving the company a market value of $350 million (a modest figure compared to VeriSign's US$17 billion acquisition of NSI). In August 2003, following collapse of the dot-com bubble, the share price had slumped to $0.48.

Disposal of the holding was criticised. Perspectives are provided in Carolyn Fasnaugh's 2001 paper (ppt version) Melbourne IT: Capturing the Economic Value of Research Applications - a report by the Victorian Auditor-General's office that highlighted the difficulty of valuing academic assets at the height of the dot-com boom - and Off Course: From Public Place to Marketplace at Melbourne University (Melbourne: Scribe 2004) by John Cain & John Hewitt. The latter might usefully be read in conjunction with The Enterprise University: Power, Governance & Reinvention in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2000) by Simon Marginson & Mark Considine.

Melbourne IT's share of the Australian market has slowly eroded: in the final quarter of FY2002/3 it handled 72% of .com.au registrations, down from 83% in September 2002. The registrars with the second and third highest shares accounted for 5.5% and 4.17% of new registrations; most competitors had tiny market shares, with the smallest a mere 0.01% of the 31,608 registrations and 15,035 registrations in Q4 of FY2002/3.

In August 2003 it acquired Domainz, the dominant registrar in New Zealand's dot-nz space.

     'Closed' 2LD Registrars

The following 2LDs are 'closed' and - as yet - there is no competition in the provision of registrar services -

edu.au - educational institutions registered at federal or state level. The edu 2LD registrar is AUNIC

gov.au - federal, state and local government bodies. The gov 2LD registrar is currently the Australian Government
Information Management Office as successor to the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE)

csiro.au - use of the Commonwealth Science & Industry Research Organisation (CSIRO).

The info.au and conf.au 2LDs are currently frozen, pending review by the New Names Advisory Panel.

    Agents

Many domain registrations in the 'open' 2LDs - perhaps the majority of such registrations - and handled by agents for the registrars accredited by auDA. Agents are not accredited by auDA; instead their performance is a responsibility of those registrars. That has lead on occasion to friction, with claims that particular agents have acted badly and that the affiliated registrar has been slow to take remedial action.

Trade practices action has been taken against particular agents, notably for misleading claims.

Detailed statistics on the changing shape and value of the registration agent sector are unavailable. Most agents appear to be ISPs, of which there were around 700 in late 2002.

     Industry codes

The revised Registrar Code of Practice and Registrar Agreement are here.

     Arbitrators and other services

The dot-au domain dispute arbitration regime is discussed on the following page of this profile. The 'close & substantial association' requirement and impediments to growth of a secondary market in Australia appear to have minimised disputes.

Along with the collapse of the dot-com bubble they also appear to have inhibited growth of specialist domain naming and domain name valuation services.

     scammers

Legitimate participants in the industry have been plagued by a succession of scammers, which have attracted inquiries by federal/state consumer protection bodies such as the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and successful court action by auDA.

The nature of those scams and action by regulators is considered in the discussion of trade practices and consumer protection later in this profile.

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