From: Larry Bloch 
Sent: Wednesday, 28 July 2004 1:17 PM
To: Jo Lim
Subject: Geographic names review

Jo,

I believe that the restriction on geographic names within com.au and net.au should 
be immediately lifted.

Australia is disadvantaged by not having these names available for registration - 
particularly for the travel and tourism industry, but also for community focused 
initiatives of a commercial or non-commercial nature. The .com.au and .net.au space 
is designed for commercial use, so a restriction based on preventing an entity from 
using a place name .com.au commercially to advantage is a contradiction.

The restriction is an historical anomaly that serves simply to force legitimate, 
commercial players to seek less desirable alternatives - particularly .com. It 
should be key to auDA's decision making to promote use of .au.

The names should be released on a first come first served basis with existing policy 
for .com.au and .net.au determining eligibility. The existing competitive registrar 
market should be used to ensure the buying public have equal access to the released 
names in a manner similar to the way the excess generic names were successfully 
released in 2003.

Regards

Larry Bloch
Chief Executive Officer
NetRegistry Pty Ltd

and 

auDA Board Member