There’s an interesting announcement from auDA this week that is worth keeping an eye on. Firstly, a little background. auDA is the organisation that administers the .au name space, i.e. domain names that end in com.au, net.au, edu.au etc..
In short the announcement is that they are going to open up second level registrations for .au. So instead of resisting YourCompany.com.au you will be able to register YourCompany.au.
Shorter domain names, always welcome particularly in the mobile focused world we live in now. And this will also open up more names to be available for registration. Although how the policy is implemented will see exactly how that roles out. There is still policy development to be worked through, particularly around existing domain name owners. If you own YourCompany.com.au chances are auDA will give you the first option to register the equivalent YourCompany.au.
How that process works remains to be seen.
It’s possible that there will be more than one interested party. For example if someone owns xyz.com.au, someone else might have xyz.net.au. Both of these parties may well be interested in xyz.au.
If history is anything to go by there will be some kind of bidding process that will allow interested parties to bid on the new shorter option. In the meantime if you happened to own both xzy.com.au and xyz.net.au that might give you an advantage, who knows…
If you already own a .au domain name it’s certainly worth keeping up with the developments here so that you’re aware of the changes and if your given first bite of the cherry so to speak, you can jump on it.