From: Glen Prideaux 
Sent: Thursday, 29 July 2004 11:10 PM
To: jo.lim@auda.org.au
Subject: Review of restriction on geographic names in com.au and net.au

Dear Jo,

I am strongly opposed to the release of geographic names in the com.au 
and net.au being made available for commercial use. I believe it is 
essential that such names be protected in order to protect the local 
communities they represent from the predation of commercial entities. 
Even if there are other methods of preventing the worst forms of cyber 
squatting and holding names to ransom, the names of the towns and 
localities in which Australians live should be treated as belonging to 
those communities and not be made available for commercial gain.

I see this as part of a broader issue with regards to domain names. I 
think that when an orgainsation registers a domain name it should give 
them the automatic right to make comment before another name that 
differs only in the 2LD can be registered. The idea being that a person 
attempting to register such a name might be asked to show reason why it 
should be allowed, and in particular that such registrations done solely 
to extort money from the organisation would be disallowed. This is 
similar to current rules on registering the legal name of an 
incorporated organisation and, presumably, company names.

In the context of geographical names, it is difficult to see how any 
commercial entity should be allowed to have a claim to the name of the 
locality/town/city in which I live, nor why local communities (as 
represented by councils, etc.) should have to go to the trouble of 
having to register these names themselves--and hope they are not beaten 
to the punch--in order to protect them.

Thank you for this opportunity to make a submission. I'd also like to 
thank NetRegistry for bringing the review to my attention, although 
their intention is antithetical to the views I have expressed here.

Regards,

Glen Prideaux