Region: Asia-Pacific

The managing body of Australia's country-code top-level domain, auDA, will launch a new, liberalized domain name system on July 1. The service will put an end to a longstanding monopoly in the '.com.au' registration market held by Melbourne IT.

21 June 2002

Australian-based Internet Name Group and Internet Registry have circumvented their suspension from registering domain names in the '.nz' domain space. Domainz, New Zealand's internet registry, had suspended the two companies following numerous complaints about their marketing campaigns.

17 June 2002

The administrator for Australia's country-code top-level domain has issued a public call for proposals for new second-level domains to be added to the six existing domains. The idea is to increase the availability of more appropriate domains from which prospective registrants may choose, such as '.law.au' for lawyers.

23 May 2002

auDA has suspended Internet Name Group's provisional accreditation following the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's announcement that it is taking legal action against the company in the Federal Court. The case, in which the commission is seeking a permanent injunction to stop ING from engaging in alleged deceptive practices, will be heard on May 24.

20 May 2002

The Hong Kong Internet Registration Authority has taken control of administering the '.hk' domain from the Hong Kong Joint Universities Computer Centre. The organization is now the only registrar of the country-code top-level domain, but it expects to create a competitive environment over time.

16 May 2002

The Malaysian Network Information Centre has appointed 11 more resellers to market and increase distribution channels for domain names ending in '.my'. The resellers are located throughout the country, providing customers with an easier and more convenient way of registering top-level domains.

10 May 2002

The Singapore Network Information Centre, Singapore's government-owned '.sg' domain name space manager, has introduced a scheme to accredit a number of registrars that will compete for business. Applications are being taken until the end of May, with organizations to be notified of their accreditation before the end of July.

17 April 2002

Japan's country-code top-level domain is to be operated by ICANN. The owner of '.jp' is only the second to agree to recognize ICANN's authority as internet policymaker since country-code owners voted in June 2001 to withdraw from ICANN.

28 March 2002

InternetNZ, the non-profit society that administers the '.nz' namespace, is in the midst of implementing a competitive registration system. The new system will encourage the entry of new registrars into the market, ending the monopoly held by Domainz.

26 March 2002

By taking control of the technical and administrative responsibility for two second-level domains - '.org.au' and '.id.au' - Australia's domain industry self-regulatory body has moved one step closer to the introduction of its new system of country-code top-level domain management, which allows for competition in the provision of domain name services.

15 March 2002