The Australian government is seeking special treatment from the US government over its input to the proposed changes in the management of the internet domain name system. The Australian government did not submit any comments during the allotted period, which ended March 23, but in Melbourne on Monday, some sixty senior members from the telecommunications, internet, tertiary education and government sectors met to formulate a response to a US proposition, which will more or less centralize the management of all internet domain names in the US. The meeting was coordinated by the National Office of the Information Economy (NOIE), an agency operating within the portfolio of communications minister Richard Alston. Competition policy, self regulation, border jurisdiction, and the finer points of domain name registration were all set down for discussion at Monday’s forum. Senator Alston supplied a preliminary response – to the effect that the US proposal would not best serve the interests of international internet development – in mid-March, but the Australian government will deliver its formal response to the US Green Paper by the middle of April, which is obviously too late for inclusion as an official response. It has apparently requested an extension on the time to respond, due to short notice. But that will not wash with the US government or those in the internet community, including those in Australia. Adam Todd, who runs the Australian Root Server Confederation, which synchronizes its domain name roots with the AlterNic alternative domain name registry, said he and others had been warning the government about the need to comment and left their own comments to the end of the period so they would not be plagiarized. If the Australian government is permitted to submit official comments after the period has closed, there is likely to be uproar in the internet community.
