Euro domain registrar gains .au approval

The company said in a blog post that it had passed the "notoriously vigorous, thorough and difficult" accreditation process in Australia.

But the announcement drew immediate questions from local registrars and resellers as to how Safenames had been admitted, despite the accreditation process being closed since October 2007.

auDA chief Chris Disspain told iTnews that Safenames had achieved provisional accreditation before the process was closed.

He said auDA had been working with Safenames until now to ensure it was in compliance with its codes of conduct, and terms and conditions.

He said the length of time to achieve full accreditation is "entirely up to the applicant".

"At some point if we haven't heard from them we might say they're no longer provisionally accredited but [the reality is] we work with all provisionally accredited registrars to get them to the point where they are ready for full accreditation," Disspain said.

"It's unclear to me why [Safenames' full accreditation] is an issue.

Disspain said auDA had fully accredited other registrars - both local and international - in the time the application process had been closed.

He also said there were other registrars that were still awaiting full accreditation after being granted provisional accreditation in the past. Disspain was unable to talk numbers.

He also said auDA had been communicating with registrars to re-open the accreditation process within six weeks.