The fallout from the new rules[1] surrounding Australian domain names has already started, even though the rules do not begin until April.
Webcentral announced on Friday it was exiting its Netalliance "drop catching" business, which it described as "the purchasing of domains if they are not renewed by the domain owner and then on selling it to someone else or back to the original owner". Naturally, they have left out the inconvenience and inflated prices when a customer forgets to manually renew a domain, versus the automated squatters swooping in, as being a factor in their decision.
"It is expected that this practice will be redundant in the near future once (auDA), the domain governing body makes much needed changes to the industry," the company said.
For selling off its half-share of Netalliance, Webcentral has walked away with AU$500,000 in cash. Netalliance has less than AU$0.5 million in total revenue and around AU$100,000 in profit each year, of which half went to Webcentral.
"Our strategy is to focus on our core business, improve our customer experience, and simplify the business structure to drive profitability," Webcentral and 5G Networks managing director Joe Demase said.
"We have identified a number of quick wins to optimise our platform assets and provided the team with clear direction of our roadmap for the future."
See also: New .au domain namespace rules come into effect April 12[2]
In the new rules, domain name monetisation by way of domain parking and affiliate sites expressly for the purpose of warehousing and transferring the domain to another will be forbidden on the org.au, asn.au, id.au, and edu.au namespaces.
Webcentral was recently taken over[3] for approximately AU$19 million by 5G Networks, which involved a bidding