Australian Domain Name Administrator (AuDA) chair Alan Cameron said the agency has now completed all recommendations arising from the 2018 government review[1] of auDA, noting as well that it now possesses new governance and accountability frameworks and a "revitalised commitment" to transparency, broad engagement, and ensuring ongoing capability.
"We now have a revitalised and robust governance regime, a comprehensive policy framework focusing on transparency and accountability, and a renewed emphasis on consultation and stakeholder engagement," auDA wrote in its annual report [PDF],[2] released on Monday.
The not-for-profit policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au domain space said it would implement the new auDA licensing framework, which is designed to modernise and simplify the rules around the licensing of .au domain names.
This includes the proposed introduction of direct registration at the second level of the .au namespace. Direct registration allows a registrant to register a domain name that is immediately before the .au.
"Direct registration provides consumers, organisations, and businesses with more choice of namespaces, which is particularly important as the online economy continues to develop and more of the community want to have an online presence," the report said.
"Australia is currently the only OECD country that does not offer direct registrations in its country code domain. We have consulted widely on this initiative and will continue to communicate with our stakeholders on the timing and process for implementation, which we expect to progress considerably in 2020/2021."
As of 30 June 2020, the total number of domains under management by auDA was 3,180,395, encompassing the namespaces in the .au country code top-level domain (ccTLD), which includes com.au, net.au, org.au, asn.au, id.au, gov.au, edu.au, vic.au, nsw.au, act.au, qld.au, nt.au, wa.au, sa.au, and tas.au.
The total figure represents a decrease