AuDA to allow direct registrations in .au

Organisations and individuals will be able to register domain names directly in the top-level .au, as per the recommendations of a policy panel appointed by auDA last year.

The 23-strong policy panel was established by the Australian Domain Administration Foundation to review the policy framework guiding how names in the .au space are allocated and used.

After ten months of deliberation and two rounds of public consultation that drew some 5000 responses, a majority of panel members recommended in December last year that direct registrations in .au should be possible.

This allows for shorter domain names such as organisation.au, which can also be more appealing and easier to remember. Direct registrations also provide Australians more choice of domain names, and are felt to be more attractive to individuals wanting domains than the current .id.au option.

The panel's recommendations were accepted in February, and a market survey of 97,000 randomly selected registrants in .com.au, .net.au, .org.au, .asn.au and .id.au showed that 60 percent of respondents were in favour of .au direct registrations.

auDA did not say when direct registrations will become available, but said it would undertake a comprehensive policy development process and further consultations with interested parties to implement the feature.

The changes to Australia's domain name structure will take place under new leadership after long-serving chief executive Chris Disspain was ousted last month. Chief operations and policy officer Jo Lim is currently filling in for Disspain while auDA undertakes an executive search for a replacement.