Government departments are fighting for .au domain registration

The introduction of the .au namespace has pitted state and federal government departments against each other as they vie for the same premium domain names.

Earlier this year, Australia’s web domain administrator auDA introduced .au direct domain names (for example http://www.crikey.au) to compliment existing namespaces like .com.au or .org.au.

For the first six months of .au’s existence, auDA has offered people or organisations who already have domains in existing Australian namespaces the opportunity to place a priority application for the .au version. For example, Crikey‘s publisher Private Media was eligible to bid for crikey.au because of its registration of crikey.com.au.