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AU domain registrar targets offenders
21 May 2003
Australia's top domain name registrar, Melbourne IT, is preparing to release a range of tools designed to help domain name owners protect their brands, chief executive Theo Hnarakis said today.
Hnarakis, who unveiled the plans at the company's annual general meeting, told shareholders "We will shortly release a range of domain name monitoring services across each of our divisions.
"Among these are sophisticated services designed to assist domain name owners to protect their online brands and alert them to potential infringements".
The news came at a meeting in which Melbourne IT chairman Rob Stewart blamed the deregulation of the .au domain name space for its 2002 EBIT result of AU$2.4 million, down from AU $4.2 million in 2001. "Associated with [the deregulation] we experienced significantly higher costs because of the new registry fees imposed by [domain name administrator] auDA.
"On the revenue side, while in this new competitive environment, we are able to maintain our retail selling price, there was some erosion of our wholesale prices," Stewart said. "This also impacted on our EBIT for the year".
However, the company's after-tax result slid to a AU$5 million loss on the back of a write-down of its investment in the troubled NeuLevel joint venture, originally established to handle the .biz domain space. "Unfortunately, the takeup of .biz domain names was much slower than originally anticipated and therefore Neulevel did not live up to our projects," Stewart conceded. "The board therefore took the decision to write down the value of our investment from AU$7.9 million to AU$1.1 million".
More details at: http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/enterprise/story/0,2000048640,20274701,00.htm
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