auDA today announced that members of the public will be able to register .au direct registration names from 24 March 2022.
Direct registrations have been controversial since the Names Policy Panel recommended them in December 2015. In its report the Panel has said:
The main recommendation is that, in principle, Australians should be able to register domain names
directly under .au (eg. myname.au). This has never been possible before – all domain names are
registered under second level domains (2LDs) for specific purposes (eg. myname.com.au for
commercial entities). The proposed change would leave the existing 2LDs in place, and also add the
option of registering directly for any Australian entity.
Direct registrations will allow people to register domain names like dnj.au or example.au without the .net or .com.
auDA is proposing a 6 month allocation period for existing domain name registrants who had held a domain name as at 4 February 2018 to register their names. Further details of the allocation process can be found here.
More to come.
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