[LINK] Domain Game. Four Corners. Monday 8.30. ABC TV.

[Adam Todd]

>The story began 11 years ago when a reclusive Melbourne University
>academic, Robert Elz, first communicated with a fellow academic in Hawaii
>via a flimsy international link. Elz had plugged Australia into something
>called the Internet.

Uhuh.  Fair enough.

>That first email connection later provided Melbourne University with a
>lucrative monopoly over distribution of Australian Internet addresses.

What utter crap.  That has nothing to do with Melbourne University as 
such.  Although I'll agree to the nepotism :)

If that were true then NET.AU and each other 2LD would also be in the 
control of MIT.  Ths is not the case.

>Four Corners explores the Melbourne IT float and asks whether the
>university may have undersold its domain names monopoly, which had been
>essentially a public asset. Is it better that such an asset is in public or
>private hands?

Well public hands of course, look at ICANN and it's constant begging for 
funding - it's "responsible" for the ENTIRE DNS!  (Except those who are 
smart enough to use Alternative Root Servers.)