Melbourne IT Changes The Rules

[Sydney, AUSTRALIA] Melbourne IT has changed its registration process in a move it says will ease the registration process of .com.au domain names for small- to medium-sized Australian businesses. From this month, Melbourne IT, which holds a monopoly in the com.au market, will accept an Australian Business Number (ABN) as a criteria to secure a com.au domain name.

Melbourne IT CEO Adrian Kloeden said the new registration criteria would “encourage millions of Australia’s small enterprises to secure their online identity and enable more individuals and organizations to take an active role in the online community.”

“[.com.au] has not been taken up by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the extent it has been by larger corporate enterprises. Recent surveys tend to suggest that SMEs don’t see themselves as requiring a presence on the Web – they believe their business starts and ends at the front door. The importance of protecting your identity that may have been built up over years of hard work cannot be understated, regardless of whether the business intends to trade online. That is why we urge all SME’s and now ABN holders to register their trading names as domain names immediately,” Mr Kloeden said.

The use of the ABN as proof of eligibility for a com.au domain name has been endorsed by the self-regulatory governing body, auDA. Applicants previously needed to demonstrate a link between their requested domain name and a registered business name.