.au

.au is the ccTLD for Australia. It is managed by auDA (.au Domain Administration Ltd).

History

The .au ccTLD was established in 1986 and it was delegated to Robert Elz, a network programmer at the University of Melbourne. After growing, The Australian Internet community decided to establish a private-sector self-regulatory body capable of administering the ccTLD. The administration went to auDA in 2000.

Rules

Australian Presence

It necessary to have an Australian presence, and one must fit in one of the following criteria:

• an Australian citizen or an Australian permanent resident visa holder;
• a company registered under the Corporations Act 2001(Cth);
• a Registrable Body means a registrable Australian body or a foreign company under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) which has an Australian Registered Body Number (ARBN);
• an Incorporated Association under State or Territory legislation;
• an entity issued with an Australian Business Number under the A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999(Cth);
• an Indigenous Corporation registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006(Cth) on the Register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations;
• a Registered Organisation that is: (a) an association of employers; (b) an association of employees (union); or (c) an enterprise association; registered under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009(Cth) and which appears on the Register of Organisations;
• a Cooperative registered under State or Territory legislation and which appears on the State or Territory register of cooperatives;
• a Charity registered under the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Act 2012(Cth), and which appears on the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission’s Charities and Not-for-Profits Register;
• a Political Party registered under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth) or State or Territory Electoral Act and which appears on the Register of Political Parties or as otherwise named;
• a Partnership under the relevant Australian State or Territory law where at least one of the partners are Australian citizens or permanent resident visa holders or an Australian body corporate;
• an Unincorporated Association formed in an Australian State or Territory with at least its management committee being Australian citizens or permanent resident visa holders;
• a Trust where the trustee must be an Australian citizen or the trustee is an Australian body corporate;
• an Educational Institution regulated under an Australian State, Territory or Commonwealth law;
• Government, being either the Crown or a Commonwealth, State or Territory statutory agency;
• a Commonwealth entity as defined in section 10 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013(Cth);
• the applicant or owner of an Australian Trade Mark can rely upon that application or registration to establish an Australian presence, but only in respect of a domain name that is an exact match of the words which are the subject of the Australian Trade Mark application or registration.

A Person (for the meaning of Person as used here, see .au Domain Administration Rules: Licensing session 1.4, Definitions) must not rent, lease, sub-licence or permit the use of the Licence by another Person, unless that Person is a Related Australian Body Corporate with an Australian Presence.

Domain Name Availability

A Domain Name will be available where:

• it is not already registered as a Domain Name in the Namespace applied for;
• it is not a Reserved Name; and
• it complies with the syntax criteria for Domain Names in the Namespace.

A Person must not apply to register a name which is deceptively similar to a Namespace in the .au ccTLD. A Domain Name is deceptively similar to a Namespace when it is likely to deceive or cause confusion to users of the Internet. Also, where the name omits or repeats a letter contained in the name of a second level Namespace in the .au ccTLD, for example, comm.au being similar to com.au.

The following categories of reserved Domain Names are not available to be registered as a domain name:

• a word, Acronym or abbreviation that is restricted or prohibited under an Australian law;
• a name or abbreviation of an Australian state or territory, including the word ‘Australia’; or
• names that may pose a risk to the security, stability and integrity of the .au and global Domain Name System.

However, a Person may apply for the registration of a Domain Name whose use is prohibited under Australian law, if:

• the Person is a statutory authority for whom the name has been restricted for their use;
• the Person has Ministerial consent to use the name and a copy of that consent is provided to .au Domain Administration; or
• the Person is not captured by the relevant prohibition.

Reserved Names

.au Domain Administration may reserve names:

• that pose a risk to the operational security, integrity and utility of the .au domain;
• where it is necessary for the proper administration of government; and
• for future use by the administrator of the .au ccTLD for operational purposes or as second level domains.

Also, .au Domain Administration must not approve any name for use as a future second level domain where the name is already registered in the .au Namespace.

IDNs and Characters

A Domain Name must comply with the following syntax requirements:

• be at least two characters long;
• contain only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9) and hyphens (-), or a combination of these;
• start and end with a number or a letter, not a hyphen; and
• not contain hyphens in the third and fourth position (for example, ab— cd.com.au).

A Person may apply to register an Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) in the .au namespace using the syntax requirements set out in the applicable IDN Tables. The two characters rule also applies (ex: 例.au is not allowed). The initial scripts supported are:

• Chinese (Simplified);
• Korean;
• Japanese;
• Arabic; and
• Vietnamese.

Country code top-level domain

Internationalized Domain Name