New dot au Domain Name Extension Launching in 2022

Australia’s .au Domain Administration (auDA) organisation has announced the introduction of .au as a new top-level domain, which will be available from 24th March 2022.

Currently Australian top-level domain names have an extra abbreviated descriptor in front of the country code, such as: .com.au or .net.au or edu.au or org.au or .gov.au. In addition to allowing for an extra top-level domain, the .au domain will allow for shorter and more memorable online names. As with the existing domains, the .au domains will also be subject to the stricter Australian presence criteria.

Starting on 24th March 2022 there will be a 6-month priority allocation period in which holders of existing Australian domain names will have the first right to apply for their second-level domain name with the .au top-level domain. Where there is more than one such eligible priority applicant allotment will be determined by the priority allocation process. This first involves categorizing such applicants as priority category 1 if the current domain licence was created on or before 4th February 2018, or priority category 2 for those created after that date. Priority category 1 will have priority over priority category 2. If there are multiple priority category 1 applicants, then allocation will be determined by negotiations between those parties, with the domain name remaining reserved and subject to renewal by all interested parties until only one applicant remains. If there are only multiple priority category 2 applicants, then allocation will be determined by which current domain licence was created earlier.

Author: Quinn Miller

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