Today’s blog gives a behind the scenes update on our latest .au registrar briefing in Melbourne, which took place on Thursday 7 February 2019.

But first, let’s define the players. Registrars are retailers of domain names. Registrars connect to Afilias, the registry operator for domain names ending in “.au”. Afilias is the contracted registry provider to .au Domain Administration (auDA), who is the administrator of, and the Australian self-regulatory policy body for the .au domain space. It is important that these 3 groups get together regularly to coordinate activities and grow the .au namespace.

Registrars in attendance included VentraIP, Terrific, Trellian, DDNS and Arq Group and many who couldn’t make it, including international registrars dialled in. Holly Raiche, leader in internet governance and current auDA Board member was also there.

Here is a rundown of the agenda:

Building awareness of .au

To kick the meeting off, Cameron Boardman, CEO of auDA reported on the latest marketing and brand development activities in place to support the Co-Marketing and Innovation Fund. He also spoke about auDA’s role in building public awareness of .au.

Namespace compliance

Steph Viljoen, Compliance and Analytics Manager at auDA gave an update on recent compliance topics and what registrars need to do as a best practice to ensure that the highest level of support is being provided to registrants.

Registry statistics and trends

Patrick Donaldson, Country Manager of Afilias Australia gave insights on current registry trends and statistics for create volume, renewal volume and total domains under management, which are all looking strong as we head into 2019.

The fun stuff

Once the tough part of the day was over, we stuck around to share some beverages and canapes and talk domains.

These briefings are a great opportunity to interact face-to-face with the people we talk to so often online and share ideas on how we can work together to protect and develop the .au namespace.

Have a question or want to suggest a blog topic for us to cover? Email us at blog@afilias.com.au.