chronology

This chronology highlights the development of the dot-au domain administration regime.

Elsewhere on this site there is a broader communications, information technology and media timeline. There is also a basic chronology for ICANN, the UDRP and ACPA.

     1984

dot-au TLD delegated to Melbourne University's Robert Elz by US National Science Foundation (NSF)

     1989

Australian Academic Research Network (AARNet) established

     1990

Elz delegates some responsibility to Sydney University's Geoff Huston ('edu' 2LD and 'gov' 2LD)

     1993

Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) established

mid-1990s Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (AVCC) transfers commercial aspects of AARNet to Telstra

     1996

Elz delegates responsibility for 'com' 2LD to a commercial unit of Melbourne University, subsequently floated as Melbourne IT

ISOC-AU established as local chapter of the Internet Society

     1997

Australian Domain Name Administration (ADNA) established

responsibility for 'gov' 2LD moves from Huston to Office of Government Online - later absorbed by National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE)

     1998

dot-AU Working Group established under Commonwealth auspices but gets bogged down

NOIE agrees to facilitate creation of a new Australian internet self-regulatory regime, with transfer of authority from Robert Elz to new entity

     1999

establishment of auDA

     2000

letter from NOIE CEO to ICANN on Principles for the Delegation & Administration of Country Code Top Level Domains

federal Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Act 2000 underpins auDA's operation

auDA seeks public tenders for management of AUNIC database of dot-au domain names

     2001

seeks public comment on proposals for competition and names policies

issues Interim Code of Practice

seeks tenders for provision of registry services for 'asn', 'com', 'edu', 'gov', 'id', 'net' and 'org' 2LDs

announces that AusRegistry will provide registry services

seeks expressions of interest for new dot-au registrars

six businesses chosen as 'test-bed registrars' (along with the existing registrars for edu.au and gov.au)

seeks public comment on draft Registrar Agreement and draft Registrar Acceditation Application

convenes Code of Practice Working Group during the test-bed period for new registry services

issues draft auDRP dispute resolution policy

     2002

auDA assumes responsibility for 'id' and 'org' 2LDs

trial of competitive registration begins February

new regime for com.au, net.au, asn.au, org.au and id.au goes live

auDA releases discussion papers about new 2LDs





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