-----Original Message-----
From: David Andrew Patterson [mailto:wlink@NOSPAMemunet.com.au] 
Sent: Tuesday, 28 May 2002 21:48
To: ceo@auda.org.au
Subject: New 2LDs for .au


I firmly believe that there is a serious and urgent need for new 2LDs 
within all existing country codes, and also for far more efficient use of 
the existing namespace and delegation system. Furthermore, I strongly feel 
that the now standard practice of registering unique domain names for every 
presentation on the WWW is a serious distortion of the intended function of 
the Domain Name System, and would urge serious investigation into the 
creation of a dedicated Web Indexing Protocol (WIP) to take over the 
function of identifying Web presentations with descriptive, user-friendly 
names, thereby allowing the DNS to revert to its true purpose of naming 
**computers** on the **Internet** (as opposed to pages on the Web) by 
owner, department, purpose and location**, just as the advent of Cascading 
Style Sheets took over the visual formatting of Web pages allowing HTML to 
return to its proper function of describing document structure and content.

**: For example: laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au:-
		* Computer name laurel (two unix boxes, Laurel and
Hardy, for staff and 
students respectively);
		* ocs - Office of Computing Services, utilising the
ability for domain 
owners to subdivide their namespace by department;
		* mq - the registered domain name reflecting the owner's
name (Macquarie 
University);
		* edu - identifies the owner's (thus the machine's)
broad purpose as an 
educational institution;
		* au - worldwide location.

The last point in particular has become severely distorted by the 
relatively inexpensive cost of generic .com and .net domains, meaning that 
many Australian sites, which should really appear within the .au namespace, 
are registered instead within the already vastly overused generic .com 
namespace.

Even within the .au namepace, the generic .com.au is vastly overused 
compared with relatively sparsely populated 2LDs such as .edu.au, .gov.au 
and .mil.au. To both relieve the demand and lessen the burden on the 
overworked .com.au, .org.au and .net.au nameservers, I would suggest a 
radical introduction of **lots** of new 2LDs, some suggestions as
follows:-

* Alternatives to .com.au:-
	- .fin.au		Finance, banking etc
	- .pri.au		Primary industry (farming, mining etc)
	- .tch.au	Technology-related industry (software
development etc)
	- .rtl.au		Retailing
	- .ent.au	Entertainment industry (cinemas, TV stations
etc)
	- .crp.au	Diversified parent and holdings companies
("corporate")
	- .law.au	Legal (eg solicitors)
	- .bus.au	Miscellaneous small business
	.....etcetera
Future .com.au registrations should then be limited to miscellaneous 
commercial entites ie those which do not fit any of the more specific ones, 
and .net.au should return to its original limitation to infrastructure and 
service providers.

* Alternatives to .org.au:-
	- .cha.au	Charitable organization
	- .rlg.au		Churches and religious organizations
	- .pol.au	Political parties
	....etcetera
Likewise .org.au and .asn.au should then be limited to non-profit 
organizations not fitting elsewhere.

* Other ideas:-
	- .med.au	Medical (hospitals etc - both public and
private)
	- .spt.au	Sporting clubs, services, venues etc
	- .nws.au	News services
	- .fam.au	Families
	- .ind.au	Individuals (as a separately administered
alternative to the 
existing .id.au)
	- .cel.au	Australian celebrities (Special rule here: these
people should 
always have first claim on their own names ie if anyone tried to register 
tamminsursok.cel.au, corneliafrances.cel.au, erniedingo.cel.au, etcetera
- 
personal consent of the celebrity should be required.)
	- .web.au	Generic websites, hosted websites (in absence of
dedicated web 
names system suggested above)
	- .etc.au	Last resort miscellaneous - eligible for
**nothing** else.

All suggestions above have deliberately been kept to three letters - no 
more, no less - in the interest of preserving some kind of standard format 
structure.

Regards,

D. A. P.