.au Domains | May 2022 Blog
On 24th March 2022, the Australian Domain controller (auDA) opened the ‘direct .au’ domains for PRIORITY APPLICATIONs for registration until 20th September 2022.
During this 6-month period, Registrants of existing .au domains (eg .com.au. or .org.au or .net.au, etc. will have priority rights to claim the direct .au domain.
Beyond this 6-month window, literally anyone with a connection to Australia will be allowed to register an unclaimed domain.
It is our strongest recommendation that ALL existing .au domain holders also register the direct .au domain. There are many commercial reasons for this, but most importantly, nobody wants to be held to ransom by opportunistic entities who may, for instance, claim your .au domain and launch an objectionable site which closely matches yours.
For instance, www.1300intech.com.au (our site) may have an opposition company launch www.1300intech.au – they LOOK the same, but they are not ☹
This link https://www.auda.org.au/au-domain-names/au-direct/priority-allocation-process provides more details about the registration process.
So, take steps now to secure your important IP – either apply yourself, or get someone (like us) to do it for you.
Don’t let the time to act slip away.