Following a heated public auction on Netfleet, creditcards.net.au sold for a new record of $22,002 (plus GST) today.

In what is the highest reported .net.au domain name sale, creditcards.net.au was sold in an expired domain auction. The domain name was acquired by an Australian domain investor.

This sale is positive for both domain investors and small business owners who hold generic domain names.

In response to harsh new anti-priacy laws proposed in the USA, many websites have gone off line or are displaying black out pages in protest at SOPA.

SOPA is the Stop Internet Piracy Act, which has been championed by Hollywood producers, who claim it is the only way to stop piracy, much to the anger of the internet community. Even some IP Lawyers are opposed to the proposed regime, claiming that it is a step to far.

The proposed introduction of SOPA is seen as a serious threat to free speech on the internet, with US lawmakers proposing to give law enforcement powers to shut down websites almost anywhere in the world, through a variety of mechanisms such as web filtering.

Major websites such as WordPress.org and Wikipedia.org are blacking out in protest.

Ausregistry and auDA have released a report from Deloitte Access Economics, which identifies the economic contribution of the .au domain industry at $475 million, just short of half a billion dollars.

The report is the first of its kind dedicated to assessing the economic impact of the .au domain space. The report examined a number of different issues including the employment created by the .au name space. The report states that total full time equivalent positions of 4,330 exist.

The report also provides useful registrant data, for example 53% of all .au domain names are registered by companies and 14% by sole traders, while 80% of all .au domain names were registered by registrants located in major Australian cities, predominantly on the eastern seaboard.

A copy of the report is available here.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has announced that the Personal Property Securities (PPS) Register will commence on 30 January 2012.

The PPS has been touted as one of the greatest legal reforms in recent times – the PPS has reformed the way in which personal property securities are registered. The PPS will incorporate all corporate charges currently registered with ASIC.

The PPS was to have commenced operations last year but was delayed.

For the first time the PPS will allow security interests to be registered over intellectual property.

We will write more about the PPS in the coming weeks.

.au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) the regulator of the .au domain name space today released a review of governance undertaken by Westlake Consulting Ltd and Argo Pacific.

The report is a 107 page report which was prepared after consultation with a broad variety of stakeholders in the .au space including government, and Cooper Mills Lawyers. The report made 15 recommendations to the board including limits on the tenure of Directors and the publication of an Accountability and Transparency Framework.

The issue of Accountability and Transparency has featured prominently in the report, most likely as a result of the perception that auDA was secretive.

Of particular note in the report is a call for improvement in the relationship between government and auDA – earlier this week we reported that the Prime Minister had taken responsibility for Cyber Security from the Attorney General’s Department.

We hope to publish a more comprehensive analysis of the report shortly.

auDA has released the new Transfers (Change of Registrant) Policy (2011-03) to replace the previous transfers policy, following recommendations of the Secondary Market Working Group review.

The new policy eliminates the ’6 month rule’ which prevented the sale of a newly registered domain name until the expiration of 6 months from the date of registration.

While the new policy removes the ’6 month rule’, the policy maintains the restriction that a Registrant may not register a domain name for the sole purpose of resale or transfer.

The new policy also, now formally recognises on online paperless domain transfer process offered by some Registrars such as Drop.com.au.

We are often asked, is it possible for someone who isn’t Australian to register .au domains names. The simple answer is yes absolutely!

In Australia we have a requirement that a registrant of a domain name must be ‘eligible’ to hold that domain name.

There is a specific policy which regulates eligibility, this is called the Domain Name Eligibility and Allocation Policy Rules for Open 2LDs (‘the Policy’). As there are tough requirements on registering .org.au, most foreign registrants are likely to only be eligible to hold .net.au and com.au domain names if they are able to satisfy the eligibility requirements.

For foreign registrants these requirements for eligibility (for .com.au and .net.au) have a 2 step process, eligibility and entitlement to register.

Eligibility

To be eligible a foreign registrant must be:

1.  A foreign company licensed to trade in Australia – in order to do this a foreign company must obtain an ARBN which is registration to trade in Australia through the Australian Securities and Investments Commission; or
2.  An owner of an Australian Registered Trade Mark; or
3.  An application for an Australian Registered Trade Mark – this is important as an application for an Australian Registered Trade Mark is sufficient, it doesn’t actually have to be registered.

One a registrant is able to demonstrate eligibility, it has satisfied the first step.

 Entitlement to Register

The entitlement to register comes down to this, a domain name must be:

1.  An exact match, abbreviation or acronym of the registrant’s name or trademark; or
2. Otherwise closely and substantially connected to the registrant – some examples of this may be that the domain name represents a product or service the registrant sells.

Examples

An example of a foreign entity who can register a domain name may be a USA Company, Ted’s Computers LLC. Ted’s Computers LLC applies to register the trade mark, Ted’s Super Computers and Accessories.

Even though the application for the trade mark has not been registered Ted’s Computers LLC could register tedssupercomputersandaccessories.com.au (which is an exact match of the registrant’s trade mark) or it could register TSCA (which is an abbreviation or acronym of the registrant’s or trademark) or tedscomputers.com.au (which is an exact match of the registrant’s name).

Ted’s Computers could also register names that it has a close and substantial connection to for example computers.com.au, routers.com.au, monitors.com.au, printers.com.au, keyboards.com.au, mouse.com.au, computercamera.com.au – as these are all products that Ted’s Computers sells.

 How to become eligible

If you would like to become eligible then Cooper Mills Lawyers can assist you to:

1. Obtain an ARBN and become a foreign registered company entitled to trade in Australia;
2. Register an Australian Trade Mark – this is the easiest and quickest way to become eligible.
3. Understand all aspects of policy and provide strategic advice.

*This blog post is based on the Policy position as at 9 November 2011. This is not legal advice and you should obtain legal advice specific to your particular circumstances.

It has been reported that the Carnegie Fund, a fund supported by the Australian Government through the Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) program has invested $3 million in Winged Media.

According to Domain Name Wire, Carnegie Fund provided the investment on the strength of websites such as Protrada operated by Winged Media.

Protrada provides aggregation of domain name auction platforms including Sedo and Godaddy.

This investment highlights the value of the Australian domain industry, which has continued to break records in investment over the past 12 months.

The Victorian and New South Wales governments have teamed up to open a tender for the application and provision of registry services for new GTLDs including .melbourne and .sydney.

The tender appears to be for a ‘start to finish’ service provider who can apply to ICANN for the GTLDs, manage the process and provider registry services.

There are a number of local players who would be likely to bid in the tender process, including Melbourne IT (who originally managed the .au space) and Ausregistry who currently provides registry services for the .au space (as well as a number of other international TLD and ccTLDs).

In a sign that the .au domain name market is hotting up investmentproperty.com.au today sold for $125,001 (plus GST) to Mad Cat Pty Ltd, which appears to be the operator of Hunter Valley property development company Vision Homes.

In spirited bidding, initial bids last night were less than $2000. The price  quickly shot up today on the two leading aftermarket domain catching services, fetching $125,001 on Netfleet and $110,001 on Drop.com.au

No doubt the registrant who let the name expire, INVESTMENT PROPERTY SOLUTIONS PTY LIMITED, would have kicked themselves at losing such a valuable domain name.

Cooper Mills Director and Domain Lawyer, Erhan Karabardak said:

These types of record results are pleasing for the domain name industry, and show that business is understanding the critical importance of a good domain name in the success of online ventures.