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NSW wins backing to protect town names in internet

Announcement posted by NSW Department of Information Technology and Management 14 Nov 2002

NSW has won national support for a proposal to establish Internet domain names for Australian towns and cities, the Minister for Information
Technology, Kim Yeadon, said today.

"This proposal was conceived by One City One Site (OCOS), a NSW community-based group formed to support the preservation of geographic domain names for community purposes.

"Under this plan, a web site address would include the name of a town or city, followed by the name of the State.

"The NSW Government supports the concept of preserving community domain names for the use and benefit of communities.

"Australia now has a golden opportunity to preserve geographic Internet domain names for the social and economic benefit of communities as a whole.

"I was so impressed by the OCOS proposal that I sought and won support for it from the Online Council of Federal, State and Territory information technology Ministers last year.

"Now, Australia's domain name administrator, auDA, has given the green light for the plan.

"There have been numerous cases of cyber-squatting in recent years.

"Sydney.com.au is one example of a domain name registered by commercial interests.

"In another case, an advertising company registered the dot com names of Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

"It is important that current restrictions on the use of geographic names in the Australian dot com and dot net online domain remain in place to avoid this sort of occurrence as this new secondary domain name plan is further explored and ready to roll out."