Businesses are being urged to act swiftly as new domain name rules come into effect today.
The change means businesses with a current domain name with an ending such as .com.au or .net.au will be able to register that address with just .au providing:
A six-month window to register the .au direct domain means businesses need to act quickly, says Susan Reece Jones, General Counsel — Compliance, Ai Group Workplace Lawyers.
“If you already have an existing domain name using .com.au or .net.au or similar, that domain name is reserved for you to register with priority status,” Ms Reece Jones said.
“However, this priority status is for six months only which means if you have not applied for that priority application, your domain name using the .au direct registration will become available to the public.”
Renewing existing domain names within the six-month Priority Allocation Period will ensure any trademarks with corresponding domain names are protected.
Businesses that registered their domain name before February 4, 2018, have priority.
Australia’s regulator of the rules for domain names in the .au country code, .au Domain Administration Limited (auDA), has an online tool to determine priority status and entitlements.
Ai Group Workplace Lawyers now has a corporate and commercial legal service, and we would be delighted to assist you regarding this important change.
Contact us here.
Wendy Larter is Communications Manager at the Australian Industry Group. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a reporter, features writer, contributor and sub-editor for newspapers and magazines including The Courier-Mail in Brisbane and Metro, the News of the World, The Times and Elle in the UK.
