.au Domain Administration

.au Domain Administration (auDA) is the manager of the .au domain, which is the country-code top-level domain for Australia. It is a not-for-profit organisation, whose membership is open to organisations or individuals who have an interest in Australian domain name matters.

Early history of .au

The operation of .au began with Robert Elz of Melbourne University. He devised the original policies, and was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the domain. All services were provided free.

In 1996, the operation of the popular .com.au sub-domain became too much for him to accomplish on a voluntary basis. He decided to give its operation exclusively to Melbourne IT, the commercial arm of the University of Melbourne, for a term of five years.

The service was run on a for-profit basis. Many also argued that Melbourne IT had no right to charge for services that had been previously provided free, ultimately resulting in a class-action lawsuit filed by ISP iiNet on behalf of all domain holders.