E&OE
auDA CEO Rosemary Sinclair talks to ABC Radio Illawarra’s Lindsay McDougall about .au direct.
Lindsay McDougall:
If you have a website for your organisation is it com.au? Our website’s net.au. There's also gov.au, org.au. I started a website a few years ago, I went with .com because it was cheaper. But what about just .au? Like it's not a typo, you're not going to get some error, from today people who can demonstrate that their business has a connection to Australia will be able to purchase a .au domain, no .com. Joining me now to explain why all this is necessary, CEO of Australia's web domain regulator, the auDA, Rosemary Sinclair. Hello there.
Rosemary Sinclair:
Hi, Lindsay.
Lindsay McDougall:
Why do we need these things at all? Why can’t we just say ‘St. George Dragons’ and just go to a website.
Rosemary Sinclair:
Because you need to know where you want to go. And the .au tells you that you're coming to St. George Dragons in Australia. Up to now, as you say, it's been stgeorgedragons.com.au and .com has signaled a business or commercial enterprise of some sort. But we wanted to open up the space for all sorts of other endeavors. And you know, maybe there's ‘St. George Dragons mums’, and they're not a business. They're a community group, so they can have stgeorgedragonsmums.au now. And do all the organising of the grassroots footy club, that is so easy if you're using an online presence. So that's why we've done it because it meets the new needs of Australians to do all sorts of things.
Lindsay McDougall:
Is it difficult to create a new top level domain? Is there a lot of work?
Rosemary Sinclair:
No, you just go to any number of, or any one rather, of the number of accredited registrars. I did this myself, so I'm talking from personal experience this afternoon. I won't influence your choice but there are a number of registrars. It literally took me two minutes. So, this is a really easy process. And that's the other thing we wanted to make getting online really easy for Australians. Whether they're, you know, little entrepreneurs with just the germ of an idea, not yet big enough to register a business but want to have a go in the marketplace. All those folks now can have their own presence online because of .au.
Lindsay McDougall:
And you say Australian businesses, how Australian do you need to be?
Rosemary Sinclair:
You need to be as Australian as your Australian drivers license or your Australian birth certificate or your Australian trademark, you need to have some validated identification of your Australian presence to come into .au, and that's because we want to make sure that it's a really trusted place. We know that Australians at the moment trust the names in .au. The com, the gov, the edu and we want them to be equally trusting of the names that just end in .au.
Lindsay McDougall:
What's the benefit do you think of having a just .au domain rather than a com.au?
Rosemary Sinclair:
Just different choices. com.au is a really trusted space of our 3.4 million names, 3 million are com.au, but you need to come to us with an Australian Business Number. So, you need to be formally registered with ASIC and go through that whole process. We think now with the gig economy, you know, all sorts of little innovations all over the place, that there are a whole lot of people running businesses that could come online, but can't meet those thresholds for com.au. So com.au will still have its place as a very trusted commercial space, but .au will open up the possibility of online business for all sorts of people.
Lindsay McDougall:
Are there any rules, Rosemary, about you know what name/what website you can create? Like I could go lindsaymcdougal.au, and you could go rosemarysinclair.au, but you know, are there any other words I can't use or other things that I can't say?
Rosemary Sinclair:
There are reserved names, like ‘governor general’ is not a name that you could have.
Lindsay McDougall:
Not yet.
Rosemary Sinclair:
There are names and might trick people, like c0m.au. So, you know, we're taking care to make sure that people aren't tricked or defrauded. But this afternoon I went and typed in rosemarysinclair.au and the name was available. So, when you go to a registrar, you can try a few different names and see what is available. So, it's really an easy process […]. So, you know there's all sorts of options and the way domain names work is unless the name is, you know, owned by a company with a trademark, it's first come first served. So, if it's your idea, and the name is available, it's yours Lindsay.
Lindsay McDougall:
So it doesn't have to be, so I don't have to say, it doesn't have to match a particular business – because the ABN doesn't come into it. It could just be something that you think that you might like to get into.
Rosemary Sinclair:
That's exactly right.
Lindsay McDougall:
So deliciousdonuts.au for example, if I was someone slinging them around town.
Rosemary Sinclair:
Exactly, lindsaysfootypies.au.
Lindsay McDougall:
That's not a bad – can I just write that down? What? What happens now …
Rosemary Sinclair:
[laughs] I think its lindsaysgigs.au is the one, isn’t it?
Lindsay McDougall:
Yes, absolutely come along to those. Look it is the gig economy after all, Rosemary. This this press release says ‘this launch that starts today, marks the beginning of the six-month Priority Allocation Process which provides priority access to these names for existing registrants’. What happens after the six months?
Rosemary Sinclair:
After the six months then all the names that haven't been allocated will be made available. So, the Priority Allocation period is for those people who already have a name, whether it's a com.au, or a net.au, we’re giving people who already hold those names a period to let us know that they would like the .au. But if at the end of six months they haven’t indicated that they want the .au, then that name would become available to the general public.
Lindsay McDougall:
So if the abc.net.au doesn't do this in six months, someone else could say, ‘well, I'm going to start a company that puts great radio content on the airwaves and I'm gonna say abc.au’
Rosemary Sinclair:
Yes, that's a good example. I doubt whether that's going to happen.
Lindsay McDougall:
I'm sure Ita is listening and typing in some important things to the email right now. But that so, so then yeah. If you already have a com.au […] domain name, now, from today, six months to say, ‘Oh, I love the .au’?
Rosemary Sinclair:
Yes, and that was part of the community consultation on how this idea should be introduced. And it was felt the current holders should have a period of six months to work out whether they wanted the equivalent .au.
Lindsay McDougall:
Where do you think this is all heading? Do you think we're transitioning away from com.au to just .au? Are things like that becoming a little bit, heading in that direction?
Rosemary Sinclair:
No, I think I think this new namespace will just find its own place. For little businesses, for community groups, for individuals. I think it will add choice and convenience to the namespace rather than taking away from any of the existing names. com.au has built up such a degree of trust in the Australian community that I think for established businesses that can meet the thresholds, that's still going to be a great choice. But if one of those businesses say had a new little marketing idea that they wanted to try, or a marketing campaign, then they could just register that in .au as an individual project. So that's how we see it working with the com.au names.
Lindsay McDougall:
And for smaller businesses that for now if they don't have an ABN they might think well I've only got I've got Facebook and you know, you know how hard it is to you know, to have sovereignty over your Facebook page. You could go and get a .au.
Rosemary Sinclair:
That’s right, you could be more independent and have your own online presence. Not be part of that, you know, more collective and managed process.
Lindsay McDougall:
Yes, managed by some scary, scary algorithms. Rosemarysinclair.au, which I'm sure we’ll see soon, very nice to talk to you, how very interesting. So, if people want to, you said there are lots of different groups that have been providing this but the best way to go, auDA.org.au. Is that where you go to find out about this?
Rosemary Sinclair:
That’s the one. There's lots of information on our website.
Lindsay McDougall:
auda.org.au. Rosemarie Sinclair, very good to talk to you. Thank you so much.
Rosemary Sinclair:
Thanks Lindsay, take care.
Ends
Listen to the interview here (begins at 2:22:39)
To find out more about .au direct visit auda.org.au/audirect