The Annual General Meeting of auDA will take place this coming Monday in Sydney. It’s also election time.
This is a most vital election – and I’m hopeful that the majority of Demand Class members (particularly those that are domain investors) will elect two candidates that represent their views. People who are not afraid to stand up and be counted – and who are prepared to engage with their constituencies after they have been elected!
All proxies had to be in by Thursday, so the die is basically cast. The only “unknown” votes will be from those attending the meeting in person.
The Candidates
With regards Supply Class, I imagine that Erhan Karabardak and Joe Manariti will get home easily. That’s not to say that Angelo isn’t a good candidate – it’s just that he has the forces of incumbency against him.
Demand Class is the interesting one. There will be a lot of tactical voting, particularly by some members who don’t want to see certain candidates get up! However, despite this, my prediction is that two of these three will be elected:
- Shane Moore (the quiet achiever)
- Tim Connell (the “Donald Trump” candidate)
- Simon Johnson (the well-organized incumbent who is supported by the “establishment”)
Chris Burgess would have made a great candidate, but he withdrew on day one due to personal reasons. Hopefully, we will see him stick his hand up again in the future.
Nicole Murdoch unfortunately left her run a bit late – had she campaigned earlier, she might have been in with a chance. Maybe next year. 🙂
| Candidate | Class | Proposed by | Seconded by |
| Erhan Karabardak | Supply | Domo Digital Pty Ltd | Mailguard Pty Ltd |
| Angelo Giuffrida | Supply | VentraIP | Domain Syndicates |
| Joe Manariti | Supply | Get Started | Butterfly Internet |
| Timothy Connell | Demand | Chris Burgess | Rodney Seeber |
| Jim Stewart | Demand | Joshua Rowe | Sean Callanan |
| Teresa Mitchell | Demand | Jonathon Lawrence | Luke Grogan |
| Simon Johnson | Demand | Simon Johnson | Big Bang Domains (Brian Lord) |
| Shane Moore | Demand | etrading Pty Ltd (Ned O’Meara) |
Frances O’Meara |
| John Nugent | Demand | John Nugent | Angelo Giuffrida |
| Nicole Murdoch | Demand | David Goldstein | Holly Raiche |
| Christopher Burgess | Demand | Calie Salter | Peter Moon |
| Peter Tonoli | Demand | Peter Tonoli | Leanne O’Donnell |
Conclusion
Whatever happens on Monday, well done to every one of the candidates who decided to have a go.
Whilst I voted for Simon Johnson at the last election, I’m not going to be voting for him this time around. Why? Because he made absolutely no effort to talk to me this year. He simply didn’t ask me for his vote. I also invited him twice to post a candidate statement on Domainer, and I didn’t even get the courtesy of a reply. That was disappointing. In my opinion, he has also neglected his constituency this past year by refusing to say where he stood on direct registrations. All those things tipped the balance for me.
Good luck to Shane and Tim.
Ned O’Meara – 26th November 2016
Disclaimer
auDA Annual report 2015/2016 auDA 2015-2016 Annual Report
Notice of Annual General Meeting – 2016
https://www.auda.org.au/about-auda/our-org/agm/2016/
Date: Monday 28 November 2016
Time: 11:00am
Venue: Seminar Room, Level 4, Australian Technology Park, 13 Garden Street, Eveleigh, Sydney
The AGM will be followed by lunch and refreshments with a presentation from Peter Leihn, BD & Commercial Director of Data61, on the National Innovation and Science Agenda.
Hello Ned, Sorry I haven’t been part of the .au conversation but last week I was in Canberra advocated for the small business sector, attending the Council of Small Business of Australia’s AGM and forum and attending meetings at Parliament House.
I represent the Coworking Spaces of Australia and within that cohort there are many startups and emerging companies. What I am seeing is the migration towards having .com domains in the perception that ‘my business will be seen as a global entity’ and as we all know very few businesses start out global. A business needs to establish it’s self locally before it can be truly trusted to deliver on a global scale and many never.
The direct registration .au will compete with .com especially when it comes to searches. Entities with a .com domain currently show up before a .com.au domain.
There has been some concern from auDA members around the direct registration of .au and the added costs to consumers to register another domain extension to protect their market brand, but from the auDA Annual Report there is 2.6 million .com.au registrations compared to 300.000 approximate .net.au registrations which indicates that a majority of registrants are not concerned about owning all extensions for their business name. At least all .com.au registrants will be given the first opportunity to take up the .au equivalent of their business name to secure their market brand.
I would also like to see more transparency around who the operating business is who owns the web domain ie ABN on the site especially for those selling a service or product.
I’m looking forward to the auDA AGM in Sydney.
See you there.
Teresa Mitchell
Hello Teresa,
How do you know .au will be implemented in this way? Why do you say .au will be implemented and current .com.au holders will be given .au registration preference?
In case you haven’t understood this forum, the .au extension is NOT to be implemented.
FYI – .net.au is “networking” .com.au is “commerce” big difference, hence the disparity between the two extensions uptake but, if you advocate and implement .au then it will compete with the .com.au extension as a commercial duplication, bad for business, mirror sites, legal issues…etc
Good luck at the AGM
Hello Scott
FYI
.com.au and .net.au purpose are for Australian commercial entities and traders.
Not sure where you got the commerce and networking connection.
Hi Teresa,
Thank you for stating your opinion. I was really excited when I first noted you had small business experince but now I feel you may need someone to assist you as a more experienced advisor when it comes to domain names both in Australia and globally.
With statements so factually incorrect as you have made now I really feel you should not have run for this election and may be best to study up a little more and consider tonight withdrawing your application for the auDA board before the AGM.
You unfortunately will not be receiving many votes from experts in domain names or SEO by stating things like this and it is 100% inaccurate. “The direct registration .au will compete with .com especially when it comes to searches. Entities with a .com domain currently show up before a .com.au domain.”
This is also not factual “At least all .com.au registrants will be given the first opportunity to take up the .au equivalent of their business name to secure their market brand.”
Please take note the lack of registrations of .net.au shows the fact there ere Millions of suitable good .au names left people can register!
Your statement about search ratings is also 100% incorrect.
I am concerned now about your other roles and what you are saying to small business after reading this and also a lack of apparent engagement with experts in the field.
May I suggest you spend some time on this other forum to gain some quick knowledge before tomorrow morning’s AGM.
Many people on that forum are auDA members from “supply” ,”demand” , staff and even board members. You may even see links from Google staff stating clearly what you mentioned is not accurate re search research which you are misinformed on.
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/election-statement-thread.11028/#post-82607
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/direct-registrations-are-happening.10629/page-14#post-82275
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/auda-improvement-suggestions-list-your-suggestions-for-auda-and-board.11047/#post-82451
https://www.dntrade.com.au/threads/ausregistry-specailist-knowledge-by-george-pongas-to-lifehacker-article.9780/#post-72331
Please really consider withdrawing. You need more time to learn up on things which are too important to make mistakes on when it comes to domain names and in the end that is auDA’s contracted role to just administer it. As an auDA board Member you may not be suitable yet with your current knowledge on domain names, global SEO, search, global results of other markets whose direct registrations have failed ( UK and NZ) etc.
Hi Teresa,
Please seek some better advice and definitely I do not think auDA Demand Board membership or Australian Domain Names advice or best policy is your most sutable skillset as auDA demand board member. I just read this which is highly inaccurate.
FYI There are 3000 global domain name extensions currently.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-australian-domain-names-teresa-mitchell?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish
Sorry Teresa – you’re way off the mark in a couple of areas. Imho.
In particular, as Scott.L observes:
Given there are so few .net.au’s why are .au’s needed?
Nobody knows if current .com.au owners will be given first opportunity to to purchase the .au because it hasn’t been decided yet.
This lack of understanding and knowledge will be reflected in the number of votes you get.
Thanks for joining the conversation Teresa.
I take it from your comments that you are for direct registrations?
Are you talking about searches made from within Australia, or outside?
There is good reason for this. net.au is seen as an inferior extension, so there is little point in doubling your costs. There is also minimal confusion between net.au and com.au.
The .au extension on its own is completely different. For starers there will be far more confusion, and whether or not it becomes the ‘preferred’ extension is unknown.
It certainly won’t be in the short term, as the UK and NZ have shown, but what about in 10 or 15 years? There is a possibility that .au might become the preferred option, or even just an equal option.
So what are businesses to do? Ignore .au and hope that it fails as an extension? I certainly wouldn’t take the risk that a competitor could have domains that end up being superior or even equal to mine.
I don’t agree that adding more red tape is the right way to go. Users can perform an AusRegistry search on any AU domain to see the name of the owner, and in the vast majority of cases, their ABN.
As Ned has detailed recently, scammers are getting around auDA’s ABN requirement. They’ll simply show the incorrect ABN on the website and continue their scan, potentially harming other innocent businesses.
Regardless, this isn’t really something that should come under auDA’s jurisdiction.
I think you should reconsider your decision.
You are attempting to run for a seat on the Australian Domain Administration Board [auDA] yet according to a simple “who is” search on your ‘own’ domain name laconcierge.com.au you are trading under an invalid ABN and you are in breach of auDA policy.
You might want to read:
Policy No: 2012-04 Domain Name Eligibility
SCHEDULE C – ELIGIBILITY AND ALLOCATION RULES FOR COM.AU
@Scott.L – very observant of you.
I’m sure it was just an oversight on Teresa’s part, and she will thank you for bringing it to her attention!
I think some people just run to put it on their CV if they win, fancy starting by saying “Sorry I haven’t been part of the .au conversation but last week I was in Canberra……”.
Yes you haven’t been part of the .au conversation Teresa, that much is clear.
It’s time to stop people who work for or whom have a significant holding in a supply side entity masquerading as demand members of auDA.
It’s time to stop the double dipping where supply side members also claim to be demand members.