There are quite of number of restrictions with .au domain names (as opposed to other domain extensions). I thought I’d share one of these.
Some of these are not obvious to your average punter – and sometimes even experienced domain investors (like me!) can be caught out. i.e. lose domains that you have paid good money for!
The moral of the story is don’t be tempted by the cheese!
Restricted Words
Believe it or not, if you register or acquire any domain name with the word “University” in it, you are likely to lose the domain within 30 days. auDA do an automatic audit on any registrations; and you get an email which makes you gulp.
Here is the auDA Reserved List Policy. Lots of words in the restricted schedule. Apart from “University”, one of the other words is “ANZAC” (I have another interesting story about this which I’ll post tomorrow).
The email I got was for the domain name “UniversityLoans.com.au” (which I had acquired at auction). Having quite a few “loan domains” in my portfolio, I thought this would be a good acquisition.
I wasn’t happy just to forfeit this domain, so I investigated the restrictions.
Guidelines for the use of the word ‘university’
The following is from the Department of Education and Training website:
The Australian Government protects the use of the word ‘university’ in Australian business, company and domain names to prevent individuals or groups from operating an entity which appears to be a University when in fact it is not.
It is possible for non-universities that want to use the word ‘university’ in their name to have this approved, where it is clear from their name that they are not purporting to be an education provider.
Happy ending
I’m glad I did pursue this issue. I sent an email to the Department of Education and Training, and they were fantastic to deal with. Cutting a long story short, they explained the guidelines to follow, and gave me a form to complete (which I emailed to them).
Within 5 business days, I was given written permission by them to keep the domain.
auDA was informed, and the “Policy Delete” was reversed.
Hope this helps others. 🙂
Didn’t know this. Thanks for link.