Australian Domain Names

The registration of Australian Domain names is governed by the .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) who is the policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au. Specific rules were introduced to monitor and manage the registration of .au domain names and clients wishing to register a .au domain name need to comply with these rules.

Failure to comply with the rules as laid down by auDA may result in domain names being stripped from registrants, potentially wasting valuable time, resources, frustrating your respective client base, and even losing the domain registration fee initially paid.

Registering a .au domain that does not relate to your company, business or organisation or that directly relates to a competitor or established entity may result in a domain name dispute being lodged, which in turn may result in the domain name being stripped. It should be noted that this policy also protects our clients, ensuring that they have reasonable access to register the relevant domain name associated with their enterprise.

In order to register a .au domain you will be required to verify your association to the requested domain name. For example: A registered business owner trading under the registered name My Online Book Store would lodge an application including their ABN or ACN for the domain www.my-online-bookstore.com.au. An application of this type would likely be accepted without any issue and this domain would then be owned by that registrant.

If however the same business wanted to register the domain name www.my-online-real-estate-business.com.au, and supplying the associated business details showed no relevance to the domain name requested, the application would then likely be refused due to a lack of correlation between the business and the domain name requested.