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Professor Jamie Murphy, from The University of Western Australia Business School , has recently been appointed to a federal panel which will examine policy surrounding the allocation and regulation of Australian domain names.

Domain names are registered website addresses, and all Australian domain names end in .au. Second level domain names, which operate within the .au domain, include such domains as .asn, .com, .id, .net, and .org.

The 2010 Names Policy Panel has been convened by  .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA), the policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au domain space.

The panel's objective is to review the policy framework currently underlying the allocation and use of domain names in the .au domain space, and make appropriate recommendations about policy changes.

Professor Murphy says that the panel will be performing a vital role. ‘Increasingly, domain name becomes synonymous with a company or organisation's online identity,' he explains. ‘But protecting this identity and who has the right to a domain name is an evolving issue. Thankfully, Australia has auDA to manage the process.'

The panel members will be reviewing policies that govern the reserved list, misspellings, and domain monetisation. The reserved list refers to phrases that are either restricted under Commonwealth legislation or pose a risk to the operational stability and utility of the .au domain. For example, phrases such as ‘anzac', ‘university', and ‘united nations' require the approval of the appropriate ministers or organisations before they can be included in domain names.

Current policy also prohibits misspellings of brands and names in an attempt to stop ‘typosquatting.' This practice has been defined as occurring when ‘a person deliberately registers a misspelling of a popular domain name in order to divert trade or traffic,' and can include using missing, additional or transposed letters. Misspelled domain names include www.woolworth.com.au, and www.wesptac.com.au.

Domain monetisation occurs when a domain name is registered in order to earn revenue - for example, through advertising - from a monetised website. Where domain monetisation is deemed to have occurred, additional regulations are then applied to the content of the website in order to protect consumers.

The 2010 Names Policy Panel is comprised of 20 members drawn from universities, law firms, internet technology companies, the Council of Small Business of Australia (COSBOA), the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC-AU), and other interest groups.

Professor Murphy's research interests include electronic marketing and new communication technologies. He is the lead academic for the Google Online Marketing Challenge, a competition in which a group of postgraduate students from his Electronic Marketing class were named this year's global winners.

The panel is due to deliver its final report in June 2011.

Media Reference
Heather Merritt
Director, External Relations
UWA Business School
T: +618 6488 8171
E: [email protected]

Verity Chia
Communications Officer
UWA Business School
E: [email protected]