auDA Directive Received

A few days ago we received the below letter from auDA CEO Rosemary Sinclair, using clause 8.3 of the Registrar Agreement to confirm that Registrars have made appropriate email notifications to their registrant clients and to provide proof of such. (Contacts and names edited out)

12 August 2022
….
Subject: Official .au direct registration notice from Rosemary Sinclair CEO auDA

Dear …,

Thank you for your participation in the launch of .au direct.

We want to ensure that existing registrants who hold a domain name know that the process which gives them priority status to apply for the direct match of their .au Direct domain name ends on 20 Sept 2022.

auDA is asking for your assistance under clause 8.3 of the Registrar Agreement to make this information about .au Direct and the end of the Priority Status period available to registrants. For your reference, Clause 8.3 provides that:

The Registrar must, at auDA’s direction, inform its Registrants by email about new or changed Published Policies relating to the Licensing Rules or Registrar Services – auDA-Registrar-Agreement-20200625.pdf

If you haven’t already done so, please send a notice about the .au Direct priority process to your appointed resellers and the registrants that you manage. I have attached an example message for you to consider.
It would be helpful if you can provide us a copy of any recent messages you have sent to resellers or registrants, along with approximate volumes of messages that you have sent, to help us provide assurances to the public that every effort has been made to notify registrants.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact:

…

Best regards,
Rosemary Sinclair AM
Chief Executive Officer

It seems like there is some pressure on auDA to show that sufficient notification and ad campaigns have been made to notify the public of the launch of direct .au.

Domainer recently posted that over 200,000 direct .au domain registrations milestone was reached, which considering that .au was launched less than 6 months ago on March 24, is an achievement worth noting. When compared to the next biggest extension that has 217,805 .net.au domains registered. By the end of August .au will surpass .net.au numbers making it the second biggest.

So the question is, has there been enough press about this and what it means to existing registrants?

From our perspective we feel that we have more than sufficiently communicated to our clients and based on all the online, radio and TV campaigns that I keep seeing/hearing, I am somewhat surprised to receive such a mandate from auDA. Either way interesting times ahead.