NetAlliance - acqusition of domain names by registrars and their related entities

Posted by Jo Lim on 30 October 2009

auDA’s Clarification of Permissible Own Use by Registrars (2008-11) states that “[c]lause 14.2.3 of the Registrar Agreement and clauses 4.2 and 4.4 of the Code of Practice prohibit a registrar, and its related entities, from registering domain names on their own behalf for any purpose other than the provision of registrar services.”

In other words, it is not permissible for an auDA accredited registrar or its related entities to register .au domain names for the purpose of domain monetisation, for example.

On 27 October 2009, it was brought to auDA’s attention that four domain names were registered on 26 October 2009 to NetAlliance Pty Ltd. We understand that the domain names were registered for the purpose of domain monetisation.

The directors of NetAlliance Pty Ltd are Larry Bloch, Giles Donovan, David Lye and Mark Lye. Larry Bloch and Giles Donovan are directors of auDA accredited registrars NetRegistry Pty Ltd, Planet Domain Pty Ltd and MD WebHosting Pty Ltd, and Larry Bloch is also a director of accredited registrar TPP Domains Pty Ltd.

The common directorship makes NetAlliance a related entity of four registrars, and accordingly it is prohibited from registering .au domain names for the purpose of domain monetisation.

NetAlliance has advised auDA that the domain names registered on 26 October were registered to NetAlliance in error as part of testing a new backorder service, and that the registrant entity should have been Publishing Australia Pty Ltd.

David Lye and Mark Lye are directors of Publishing Australia, but Larry Bloch and Giles Donovan are not. On the face of it, this means that Publishing Australia is not a related entity of a registrar, and therefore it is not prohibited from registering domain names for the purpose of domain monetisation.

auDA has accepted NetAlliance’s explanation, and permitted it to process a “correction to registrant details” for the four domain names, in accordance with section 6 of the Transfers (Change of Registrant) Policy (2008-08).

NetAlliance has provided written confirmation to auDA that its directors and employees understand auDA policy requirements in relation to the acquisition of domain names by registrars and their related entities.