The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson has implored small businesses to take urgent action by 20 September deadline to safeguard their brand and identity on the internet or risk seeing impersonators, web-name ‘campers’ or cyber criminals take up domain names just like theirs.
The auDA introduced the new system on 24 March allowing anyone with a connection to Australia, such as businesses, associations and individuals, to register a new category of domain name. Instead of ending with .com.au, .net.au, asn.au, etc people could register the shorter .au name. For example, shoes.com.au could be shoes.au
Australian businesses with an existing domain name only have until 20 September to reserve or register their equivalent .au domain name before it became available to the general public
The Ombudsman said the changes could see businesses lose their customer base or be at the mercy of cyber criminals impersonating them if they did not proactively sign up to the new system.
Source: CPA Australia
