DN Journal Under Pressure auDA Reverses Misguided Course on .AU Domain Names But Only for Current Registrants

[DNF NewsbotDNF Newsbot is verified member.]

According to a report in Smart Money magazine this morning, auDA, the administrator of Australia'a .au top level domain and parent of second level versions like .com.au, .net.au and .org.au, has backed off a plan that could have cost their own registry over two million registrations.

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[accurate]

I guess that is something.

 

[Mr. DeletedMr. Deleted is verified member.]

@Helmuts

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

I guess that is something.

yes, it is .. Trillion/Above were applying maximum pressure to AUDA while the rest were more silent (at least I haven't noticed anyone else fighting this battle)

 

[Mr. DeletedMr. Deleted is verified member.]

Why would anyone need a tm for a ccTLD?! It makes no sense.

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

Why would anyone need a tm for a ccTLD?! It makes no sense.

not the only ones who have such rules

.. ccTLDs are kings > ICANN can't tell them what to do > they can run their extensions as they wish and it is actually awesome .. if you went deeper in this > there are lots of differences on how many ccTLDs are run

I suppose it is only the USA where .com is the king > in most countries (especially in Europe and Australia) >> a local business would gain lots of trust points is run on the local TLD.

let us say you had to have a US company with a US trademark to have a .us domain > just imagine, how respected these would be do you see it?

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

@Afuzu please explain the requirements needed to be able to register a .ua (Ukraine) domain (not 3rd level, just 2nd level .ua domains). And, what is the impact of these restrictions on .ua abuse rates

 

[Afuzu]

please explain the requirements needed to be able to register a .ua (Ukraine) domain (not 3rd level, just 2nd level .ua domains). And, what is the impact of these restrictions on .ua abuse rates

For a direct second-level.UA name, such as example.ua, the rule is essentially: the registrant must have trademark rights that match the name.

• The domain label must exactly match a trademark protected in Ukraine. This can be:
  • a Ukrainian trademark registration; or
  • an international trademark registration that has legal protection extended to Ukraine through the Madrid system.
• The registrant must be the trademark owner, or have documented rights to use it, such as a recorded licence or transfer of rights.
• The registrar requires the relevant trademark evidence and checks that it is valid, protected in Ukraine, matches the requested domain, and corresponds to the registrant or authorised user.
• Where the mark contains non-Latin characters or symbols, the policy permits specified transliteration and formatting rules. A Cyrillic mark can therefore support an appropriately transliterated Latin.UA domain.
• Normal technical syntax still applies: 1 to 63 characters, Latin letters, digits and hyphens, with no leading or trailing hyphen.
• The registry policy allows up to 14 days for application processing, so this is not the instant, automated registration experience of an open extension.

It is a rights-based restriction, rather than simply a Ukrainian-residency rule. A foreign business can qualify, but it needs a qualifying trademark protected in Ukraine and matching rights documentation.

Impact on abuse rates

The restriction should materially reduce malicious registrations of direct.UA names. A phisher cannot cheaply bulk-register arbitrary lookalike names at the second level without first acquiring or misusing qualifying trademark documentation. Manual review, documentary evidence, and the exact-match rule add cost, delay and traceability, which are all unattractive to high-volume abuse operations.

However, it is important not to overstate the conclusion:

• The restriction applies to example.ua, not automatically to all names ending in.ua. Many public third-level spaces, such as example.com.ua, have different eligibility rules and are the more relevant comparison for open-registration abuse.
• There does not appear to be a reliable public abuse-rate dataset that separates direct second-level.UA registrations from the wider.UA namespace. So it would not be sound to claim a precise percentage reduction caused by this policy.
• The broader.UA namespace is not abuse-free. In the October 2025 through March 2026 reporting period, one major reputation-data provider recorded 6,803 malicious or suspicious.UA-domain listings, placing.UA seventh among ccTLDs by count. That is a count, not an abuse rate, and it includes the whole namespace rather than only trademark-restricted second-level.UA names.
• Trademark controls mainly deter new malicious registrations. They do not prevent abuse of compromised legitimate sites, hacked accounts, deceptive subdomains, or domains registered in less restricted.UA third-level zones.

Bottom line: the.UA trademark requirement is a strong gatekeeper for direct second-level registrations and likely keeps their malicious-registration rate lower than it would be under unrestricted, low-cost registration. But it is not evidence that all.UA domains have low abuse, because public third-level.UA spaces and compromised legitimate domains remain part of the wider abuse picture.