[LINK] auDA's takedown of stephenconroy.com.au

[Stilgherrian]

On 21/12/2009, at 2:33 PM, Philip Argy wrote:
> I assume the registrant had insufficient nexus with the domain name, and was
> therefore non compliant with the .com.au eligibility criteria.  The
> registrar arguably should not have permitted the registration.

This is indeed the reason auDA has given, as the ZDNet piece says:
...

"[auDA CEO Chris] Disspain said that there was no element of censorship in its decision to investigate the site, but rather just a concern about whether the company really had cause to use the stephenconroy name. "We don't care what the website says or does. It's not our issue. The question is, are you eligible for the domain?" he said.

The domain name has not been taken out of Sapia's hands as yet, only made inactive, Disspain said. Sapia had fourteen days from last Friday to show that it is eligible to hold the name. If the company is able to prove a connection to the name, for example via showing it offers a product or service carrying the name, it will be allowed to keep using the domain.

Sapia has said its right to use the name stems from owning a consultancy with Stephen Conroy in its title. "There is nothing on the website which suggests that is the case," Disspain said.

...

But, in practice the "close and substantial connection" required by the polic can be something like the name of a product they sell, the name of a project they run etc.

The example I use in my Crikey piece is string.com.au, registered by Internet Products Sales Services Pty Ltd to link to sites selling guitar strings and string bikinis.

Perhaps if Sapia had originally said the purpose of the site was to write political commentary about Senator Conroy, auDA would've had a harder decision to make.

Personally, I think the 3-hour time frame is completely unreasonable. while Disspain says that the registrant has warranted that they have the close and substantial connection, I do think it's a bit lawyerly to expect a registrant to drop everything they're doing an produce documentation in such a short time.

Again speaking personally, if I were in the middle of something else, say writing to deadline or at a conference, I wouldn't necessarily have documents at my fingertips not the time, right at that moment, to leave what I was doing.

In the case of something which isn't fraudulent, and which could be argued fits well within Australia's spectrum of "robust political debate", it does seem a bit hasty.

Or am I the only one here?

Stil


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