The Sledgehammer – Why You “Should” Buy .AU

So let me get the obligatory disclaimers out of the way first.

As I have written many times in the past, in my opinion, the introduction of direct registration is no more than a cash grab for the powers that be i.e. the supply side of the equation.

In particular, think auDA (regulator) and Afilias (registry). They in turn use registrars and resellers to achieve their aims.

They all “clip the ticket” along the way (auDA and Afilias particularly), and given the way they have set it up, they will probably “double and triple dip” for years to come.

That said, it is here now, and we have to obviously make the best of it (and also try and make money out of it!).

But what has caught my attention are the number of recent articles urging SME’s to get on board (or else).

I call it “the sledgehammer technique”.

Check out this one from Business Victoria. Talk about “Influencers!”

“New ‘.au’ domain names – 7 things your business should know”

Here are some quotes from “Thing Number 7”. They seem to emphasise the potential for fraud and confusion.

If you don’t register the .au alternative, it’s also possible that someone else could step in and take it. Consider this risk carefully and how it might affect your business and its operation in the future.

This could create an opportunity for someone to impersonate your business and conduct fraudulent cyber activity, such as creating a fake website or sending emails to people pretending to be your business.

Your clients might not spot that the invoice they’ve just received was from [email protected] and not your actual email address [email protected].

Activity such as this can result in you and your clients losing money and it can also be a hit to your reputation and the level of trust your customers have with you.

 

Whilst these are all valid reasons, let us not forget that auDA created this new .au extension out of “thin air”. These are problems of their making – in my opinion.

With just over 3.2 million Australian registrations at the time (compared to over 140 million for .com), did they have to? No.