Second-level .au names coming next March with tight deadline
Australia will soon become the latest country with an historical three-level ccTLD structure to offer second-level domains directly under .au.
Local registry auDA said today that direct SLD regs will become available next March.
It’s not the first country to do this — Australia follows the UK and New Zealand in de-emphasizing .co.nz and .co.uk in favor of SLDs.
But it’s giving registrants a much shorter deadline to claim their matching domains.
Unlike the UK, where registrants had five years to grab their matches before they became generally available, Aussies will only get six months.
Existing registrants will get first refusal on their matching domains. In cases of contention — where the .com.au and .net.au are registered to different people, for example — the registrant with the oldest domain gets priority.
Australian presence rules also apply.
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