Are Brothels Really The Biggest Australian Domain Squatters?

from the fear-uncertainty-and-brothels... dept

This one just seems bizarre. Apparently, Australians are suddenly allowed to buy domain names associated with geographic places — though, it’s not at all clear how this was blocked before. The example the article mentions, bundaberg.com, appears to actually have been registered in 2000. Considering these are dot com names, it doesn’t seem like the Australian government should have any say in what’s available and what isn’t. The next odd part is that these domains are supposedly going to be sold for $1,000 — well above the actual amount. If anything, it sounds like some company has been domain squatting on these domains and is suddenly trying to sell them. However, even more bizarre is that the rest of the article seems to focus on the odd suggestion that brothels might (gasp!) register these domain names. Who knew that brothels have been salivating over the possibility of domain squatting geographic domain names? The whole article sounds like it’s trying to make a big fuss over something that seems like a remote chance, at best.


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Comments on “Are Brothels Really The Biggest Australian Domain Squatters?”

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4 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

No Subject Given

Here in australia you must (at least in the past) have a registered business name to get the appropriate .com.au address. Im not exactly sure how tough the rules are, but I do know you must be able to show legal documents indicating you have some kind of good reason to own a domain.

ie birth certificate to get johndoe.com.au, business registration to get companyabc.com.au

Precision Blogger (user link) says:

This one makes pefect sense!

Just two points:
(1) If, all over the world, brothels registered names for the towns they were in or near, then travelers would know they could easily find a brothel by going to http://www.mycurrent_location.whatever.

(2) Towns would hate it. I’d prefer if thewebsite most assocaited with my town;s name were NOT a brothel.
– Precision Blogger
http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com

James Quintana Pearce (user link) says:

There is a reason for this

This article isn’t very well written — you’re right in that .com domains are not affected by this. Australia’s domain name regulator (which has nothing to do with the government) is selling .com.au geographical domains, which were previously restricted. The money raised will be used to fund a series of true geographical domain names, of the structure placename.state/territory.au. The idea is to give communities a domain name…

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