.au direct update

Australia’s newest namespace, .au direct, will launch on 24 March 2022. auDA and the Australian domain name industry are working together closely to prepare for its introduction. 

An update on .au direct preparations is provided below.  

auDA has released the Priority Status Tool on the auDA website to help registrants check the status of domain names that are subject to the Priority Allocation Process. 

At launch, existing registrants of eligible .au domain names will have priority status to apply for the exact match of their domain names in .au direct. The Priority Allocation Process runs for six months from 24 March until 20 September 2022. 

The Priority Status Tool will allow registrants to:

• Check the Priority Category of a domain name
• View any matching domain names in other .au namespaces and their Priority Category
• Discover whether other existing registrants have lodged a Priority Status application for the matching .au direct name (from 24 March 2022). 

The Priority Status Tool is available here.

The launch of .au direct on 24 March 2022 will allow people to register domain names directly before the .au (e.g. getyour.au) for the first time. 

As a result of the introduction of .au direct, auDA is seeking community feedback on reserving domain names at the second level (i.e. domain names that appear directly before the .au) and adding them to the Reserved Names List.

Reserved Names are .au domain names that are not available to be registered, except in specific circumstances. The Reserved Names List is the complete list of domain names reserved by auDA to prevent their misuse and ensure a high level of trust is maintained in the .au. Information on reserved names is set out in section 2.6 of the .au Licensing Rules. 

Consultation is now open and will conclude at 5pm on 31 January 2022. For more information on the proposed names to be added to the Reserved Names List and to have your say, visit the consultation page.

auDA has today published an updated version of the .au direct Priority Implementation Rules and consequential changes to the .au Licensing Rules in response to feedback, clarifying sections of the Rules and to add key dates related to the introduction of .au direct. 

The updated .au direct Priority Implementation Rules, including a marked-up version illustrating the changes, is available here: www.auda.org.au/policy/auda-rules-au-direct-priority-implementation.

The updated version of the .au Licensing Rules is available here.

ENDS