TRANSCRIPT
Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson interview with Rebecca Levingston.
ABC Brisbane
20 September 2022
Subject: internet domain name changes
Rebecca Levingston
Business owners across Australia are being encouraged to update domain names or risk being targeted by cyber criminals. So, think of a business that might have a website that ends in .com.au or .net.au Well, now simply using .au is being recommended and the deadline for dibs on that web address is today. Bruce Billson is the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. Bruce, good morning.
Bruce Billson
Rebecca fab to be with you and your Brisbane listeners.
Rebecca Levingston
Why are you recommending just .au for small businesses?
Bruce Billson
That's not quite what I'm doing. I'm not necessarily recommending it. What I am recommending, though, is people turn their minds to whether they want to secure that shortened version of their existing domain name or risk someone else purchasing it, perhaps without their interests at heart. So, it's really an opportunity. The non-government regulator, auDA, has decided to make these abridged domain names available in Australia. So that's a bit like what's happened overseas already.
My urging is to small and family businesses to realise that we already see too many businesses subject to cyber threats, people impersonating their websites and other risks to their digital presence. And this represents another risk where you and I might have invested in our business. Our website is a critical channel to our customers. People know of us and can access our goods and services by our website. And then someone comes along, perhaps emulating us to cut off that customer traffic or worse still engage in cyber criminal activity. So that's really my call, Rebecca. Think about whether you'd be upset if someone owned a domain name that was a shortened version of yours.
And if you think that would be not in your interest, you've got today and the first part of tomorrow morning to secure it through a direct access process that prioritises you because you have the longer version of the domain name.
Rebecca Levingston
Okay. Well, I reckon it's probably a pretty quick answer for most businesses. If you've got ilovedogs.com.au or cupcakeking.com.au you don't really want someone to have ilovedogs.au or cupcakeking.au So how much does a .au web address cost?
Bruce Billson
They are about $8 or $9 a year, or you can get a multi-year reservation for around $20 or $30. You can get those through the people that you've got your original domain name from. There are sellers and resellers and retailers of domain names like GoDaddy and others, so they're not difficult to get hold of. I guess what’s concerned me, Rebecca, is this change is happening and as I travelled around Australia, I didn't know anybody that knew it was coming.
And for exactly the reason that you described, if you had radiorebecca.com.au and, you know, did side hustles of weddings and whatnot and someone thought I'll cut that traffic off, I'll become radiorebecca.au you wouldn't be too thrilled. So, I was just urging small and family businesses to become aware that this change is happening and to take steps to protect their interests.
I'm sure some people might want the shorter version because it feels kind of a bit more funky, maybe, I don't know, but it's more in my eyes businesses needing to defend their digital presence and their digital identity and the investment they've made in their website and its crucial role with its relationship to customers and the like, rather than having a risk of someone else pulling that rug out from underneath you.
Rebecca Levingston
Something for small businesses to think about. You listening to Bruce Billson, Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. Not recommending, let me be clear, recommending that you think about .au
Think about how would it affect your business if someone had your domain name and was just .au versus .com.au and so just also to drill down into that deadline. Businesses who have that existing website name they have first dibs on .au do they, and after tomorrow it's just open to whoever.
Bruce Billson
Yeah, that's pretty much it. To be precise you've got til 9.59 tomorrow morning. So, I've been trying to make the message simple, get it done today. And then if you've got that longer version and you apply for the like-for-like the shortened version with the .com. the .net or whatever taken out, there's something called a priority allocation process and you get first dibs on it.
So that priority allocation process you've got today and until 9.59 tomorrow morning. And then in the first week of October, those names become available for the general public.
Rebecca Levingston
Yeah. And you know what capitalism will do? Someone will buy up a whole bunch of .au sites and then probably flog them for more than $9.
Bruce Billson
This is what happens now, Rebecca. I mean, you've absolutely nailed it. People do that as a speculative thing, thinking, Oh, someone will really value this down the track. In an earlier stage of my career someone offered to sell me my own domain name and I thought no, I'm not going to reward you, so I ended up going with just .com rather than .com.au because someone had bought that and offered to sell it to me for a pretty penny.
So that happens. But, worryingly as well, we know small and family businesses can be targeted by cyber criminals. This idea that you can ambush market a business by emulating their website is something that already happens now. And as our Cyber Security Centre has warned, this new shortened domain name represents another risk to small and family businesses that may well be taken up by cyber criminals and that's why I'm urging people to protect their interests. Yes, it's largely a defensive move to make sure someone else doesn't grab hold of that shortened version of your website name and try and protect your interests through that simple step.
Rebecca Levingston
Who gets that $9 a year? Because if lots and lots of small businesses do that, that will add up to to quite a bit.
Bruce Billson
And that's one of the question marks that's come up during this journey. The non-government regulator gets a significant share of that. So that's au Domain Administration in Australia. They've been managing these domain spaces for some years. So, they will get some of that money. And, of course, if you're going through a wholesaler or a retailer or in some cases a reseller where people actually put pretty attractive domain names on the market for sale at a much higher price than that simple registration fee, those numbers can be a whole lot bigger. And that business will get a larger clip, but each time one of these domain names are registered, the non-government regulator gets several dollars out of it.
Rebecca Levingston
Interesting. And presumably, I mean, you are the Small Business Ombudsman, so you're particularly focused on informing and protecting small business, but I know a lot of big companies will buy up any sort of similar domain names, won’t they? Or are you suggesting even, you know, Qantas should be doing this too?
Bruce Billson
Absolutely. I mean, it's for any business that's made that investment in their digital identity. This is important.
Rebecca Levingston
What about Bruce, a public broadcaster like the ABC? We’re abc.net.au should we be abc.au?
Bruce Billson
Well, don't worry about that Rebecca, I've already reserved that one and I'm happy to sell it at a reasonable price. Being mildly facetious. But of course, that's the issue.
And we saw this sometime earlier with industrial relations advice where people were mucking around, looking like they were the Fair Work Ombudsman and they weren't, they were a private company, so some litigation was involved in that space.
But Rebecca, we see this all the time where businesses are trying to capitalise on the good work and the strong Internet presence of a business that's got a good domain name. Someone Googles it, because very rarely do people put the whole domain name in the whole URL, they might say Rebecca Radio Brisbane and then up you’ll pop. If some other domain name slipped in rather than yours for weddings and the like as a voiceover legend, this is the problem that businesses face now and it's a greater risk because of this change.
Rebecca Levingston
I'm really going to have to register that domain name Bruce. Either that or I'm going to get in trouble. But interesting. I might ask up the chain whether someone in online is snapping up abc.au on the basis of your comments, Bruce.
Bruce Billson
I would and pleasingly in some of these allocation processes and I mentioned there was a little gap between when you had that priority access which you know, just to emphasise to your listeners that runs out at 9:59 a.m. tomorrow morning and then those people administering the domain names will work out who's got dibs on what and who's got legitimate claims.
And then it's October 4 when the general public can start applying. There's some protocols around government-type domain names. So hopefully if you're tech legends at the ABC haven't responded to my urgings, hopefully there's some safeguards there as well.
Rebecca Levingston
All right, Bruce, really interesting information for people to weigh up in particular today as the deadline approaches for that priority allocation of first access. Thank you for your time.