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.au's Reclusive Administrator Elz Deposed
Disco Stu writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has the following story: 'The reclusive programmer Mr Robert Elz has lost control of Australia's domain name system to a private-sector body after the Federal Government rejected his request for the Government to take over the custodianship instead.' I've had to wait months for this guy to get around to approving domains in the past ... but I still can't decide if this is good or not." Sounds bad to me -- or at least Elz sounds good, principled and unconventional.
Aussie seems to have some wierd internet policies. First the pass big brotherish computer laws that basically allow computer spying, and now the refusal to maintain the .au domain system. I think this improper management of the internet gives greater calling for some global standards.. ones better than ICANN
This guy did the whole .au domain authority without making any money? He should of started a business off the get go. The best way to make the rules is to be the one in power, and now he is force to hand the keys to the kingdom over to IANA.
The SMH link was down, check out the Australian IT news site out.
ICANN said that as Internet names increasingly had commercial value, decisions could not be made on an ad hoc basis by individuals that were not formally accountable.
Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black. What was ICANN's reason for now allowing the TLD iii? "It looks too difficult to pronouce." And who exactly is ICANN accountable to? Well...oh yeah, that's right no one.
Give me a break. When was the last time there was a problem with the way this guy was running things? When was the last time you read a story about some lame cybersquatting issue from AU? I don't think I've ever seen one. And, to close with another adage...if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
*sigh*
.org.au. kre's had a fairly clearly defined policy about .org.au for a long time now, but it's still a common sight to see someone whining because "I need to get eleetdudes.org.au for me and my mates and kre won't let me. Waaah".
.org, .net and the like.
Yet more crap about Elz and
Or the folks who don't follow the instructions and expect someone to clean up after them.
No doubt we'll now see org.au turn into the same sewer as
Domain registration / administration in australia sucks. I'm happy about any change in who's in charge, it'd have to be really shitful to be any worse than Elz. Apart from the attitude, and delays that have been posted about here by others, the .au policy is downright terrible. You can't have any domain that's in the dictionary, or any suburb name as listed as having a postcode in the white pages. This basically means that no businesses can get their own name, making domain names redundant since you can't as easily guess them, and it's harder for clients to remember something that's not very similar to your business name, or just too damned long which is the approach many australian businesses have taken.
Now if we could only do something about the BAS.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Given the fights between ICANN and the ccTLDs about funding, isn't there a conflict of interest in ICANN being able to review the appointment of ccTLD managers?
I work for a mediocre telecommunications company in Australia. I have had many a drawn out phone conversation with Mr. Elz regarding the abnormally long process of registering anything inb the .au domain that hasn't been given to a company to look after. (INWW, Connect, etc). I will give him this, he is extremely good at making his lack of performance seem completely damn reasonable and in fact, every body elses fault. Ten points for the pretencious so and so.
Fascinating though your comments on Austria are, this thread is not about Austria, it's about Australia.
And businesses should register a .com.au like all the other businesses, using their Business Registration Number that all Australian businesses are required by law to have.
The .org.au domain is for non-profit organisations and Elz has never promised miracles with .org.au. Reasonable requests are usually granted within a time frame that non-profit organisations can accept.