E&OE
On 26 August 2022, auDA CEO Rosemary Sinclair spoke to 6PR Perth’s Gareth Parker about the benefits of .au direct and the Priority Allocation Period, closing 20 September 2022.
Gareth Parker
Soon there will be website addresses that will just be .au. So, drop the .com, drop the .net drop, or whatever. It might be 6PR.au. That might be where you find us. There is a bit of a hitch though, because if you’ve already got an existing com.au or net.au address, and you’d like to also get a hold of the .au [direct] address, you need to actually take some action.
There’s an organisation called auDA, who look after the domain name registration system here in Australia. The CEO of auDA is Rosemary Sinclair, who joins me on the program. Rosemary, good morning.
Rosemary Sinclair
Good morning, Gareth.
Gareth Parker
Thank you for your time. So, this .au [direct] new web suffix, when is it coming?
Rosemary Sinclair
Well, we launched it on the 24th of March [2022]. People have got six months until the 20th of September [2022] to apply for priority for their .au [direct domain name]. And then we’ll be releasing names on the 4th of October [2022].
Gareth Parker
So, it’s not too far away.
Rosemary Sinclair
No, and that’s why your discussion today is very useful. We really want everybody in Australia to think about the option of .au [direct]. At the moment, we’ve got 3.6 million domain names in the Australian domain, and we want all of those folks to think about whether they would like to apply for the priority of the .au [direct domain name].
Gareth Parker
There’s nothing compelling you to apply for .au [direct] if you already own the .com.au is there?
Rosemary Sinclair
Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing will happen to your website, or email address ending in com.au or net.au, or the others that you mentioned previously. Nothing is going to happen to those existing names.
Gareth Parker
Okay, so it’s really about whether you choose to also take up the .au [direct] version of your website.
Rosemary Sinclair
Yes, and it’s also an opportunity for people who have not come in to the .au domain, to think about whether they’d like to do that. For example, we know that 15 per cent of small businesses at the moment don’t have a website, and we think that they might be interested. We think there’s a whole lot of micro businesses, you know, the change in our economy to entrepreneurs and solo operators. Those folks might like to think about getting a .au [direct name] as part of building their business. So, we think that there are new opportunities as well for people to think about.
Gareth Parker
Is there a requirement to pay extra? If you already own the com.au, do you have to pay extra to register the .au [direct]?
Rosemary Sinclair
Every domain name in Australia has the same wholesale price, which is the bit of the price that we control. So, if you’ve got com.au, then the wholesale price is less than $10 a year. A .au [direct] name will also be less than $10. They’re the exact same price. And that relates really to the cost of administering the policies and the cost of keeping .au domain a really secure and trusted domain.
Gareth Parker
Okay, so you will have to pay an extra $10, or perhaps more, depending on who you buy your domains through to get the extra one, but doesn’t this create potentially an opportunity for what are known as cyber squatters, who might be able to create some confusion?
Rosemary Sinclair
Look, there’s been quite a lot of concern about that. But when we look at evidence here in Australia and internationally, we don’t see strong evidence that what we call the direct registration, .au direct, or .uk or .nz, or .ca in Canada, we don’t see evidence that has driven an increase in criminal activity. There are things to worry about, particularly if you’re a small business. A hacked website or business email compromise, are two problems that we do want people to worry about. But the use of domain names for fraud is very, very minimal. We measured that at 0.03 per cent of all the domain names that we're looking after.
Gareth Parker
A question from a listener off-air wants to know, do you need an ABN to buy a domain name?
Rosemary Sinclair
No, in .au [direct] you do not. You need to have proof of Australian presence. That needs to be validated – drivers license, passport, the like. We're going through a process of just checking and making sure that that's all okay. If we see any trouble areas, we do audits of those patterns. And of course, we've got a complaint system that works really effectively. But no, you don't need an ABN to register a .au [direct] name.
Gareth Parker
So if you do want to get a priority on a .au [direct] web address, act now is the message.
Rosemary Sinclair
Yes, that's exactly right. The easiest thing is to go to auda.org.au. I'd love Gareth, to say auda.au but I can’t yet…
Gareth Parker
Not yet...
Rosemary Sinclair
And just right on that webpage we’ve got .au direct, click on that and you'll get all the information you need.
Gareth Parker
Thank you very much for your time this morning, Rosemary, appreciate it.
Rosemary Sinclair
Absolute pleasure.
Gareth Parker
Rosemary Sinclair, the CEO of auDA, the Australian domain registry.
Ends
Find out more about shorter, simpler .au direct domain names here.
