AuDA stops Beaconsfield exploit

The Australian domain name administrator, auDA, has claimed a win for itself following the deletion of two sites aimed at exploiting the Beaconsfield rescue.

The Australian domain name administrator, auDA, has claimed a win for itself following the deletion of two sites aimed at exploiting the Beaconsfield rescue.

Brantwebb.com.au and toddrussell.com.au were deleted by auDA this morning - 24 hours after their registration.

AuDA CEO, Chris Disspain said in a statement that while it was possible that the registrations were legitimate the administrator’s immediate reaction was that it was more likely to be an attempt by the registrant to ‘cash in’ on the news story.

“We immediately arranged for the registrant to receive a ‘please explain why you are eligible for these names’ notice and gave them 24 hours to respond. No satisfactory explanation of eligibility has been received so we deleted the domain names this morning,” he said.

Any com.au and net.au domain name registrants must observe auDA’s eligibility criteria which requires that those domain names must either reflect the registered name of the business or trademark concerned or be “closely and substantially connected” with the activities that business undertakes, auDA said.

These eligibility criteria were designed to ensure as many Australian businesses as possible were able to take advantage of the internet and prevent opportunistic or tenuous domain name registrations, the administrator said.