Melbourne IT admits domain breach

April 1st, 2003
By Kate Mackenzie

AUSTRALIA'S biggest and oldest domain name registrar, Melbourne IT, has been rapped over the knuckles for breaching its agreement with the domain name authority, auDA.

The .au Domain Authority (auDA) also actions by Melbourne IT, which is the registrar for most of the popular .com.au domain names, were "not in the spirit of the .au Domain Name Suppliers' Code of Conduct" - which Melbourne IT helped to develop.

The breach was related to a mailout to 1,500 .au domain name registrants on February 18 and 19. The letters were a marketing effort by Melbourne IT, targeted at registrants of .au names who used other registrars. Melbourne IT contravened the Registrar Agreement by using the authoritative Ausregistry database to check the recipients did not already use Melbourne IT's services.

"We could've actually checked our internal records, so it was even more regrettable," Melbourne IT general counsel Moana Weir said.

auDA also said the mailout used envelopes marked "important account information", which was incorrect as the recipients had no existing relationship with Melbourne IT.

Ms Weir said the company supported auDA's codes and the breaches resulted from a misunderstanding by staff.

"All the processes were there in place, and there was regrettably a couple of lapses. So what we've done is gone back and re-iterated that process," she said.