September 20 is the cut-off for grabbing your .au domain name. If you don’t grab it before then your business name could be used by your competitors.
If you own a domain ending in .com.au, you have priority access to get the shorter .au domain name that matches your .com.au by 20 September 2022.
By claiming your .au before 20 September, you protect your brand and ensure competitors or scammers can’t snap it up and cause problems for your business.
Protect your customer loyalty, brand identity and security with the .au that matches your .com.au
Claim your .au now for $52
or contact us if you have questions or concerns.
Concerns about the .au Domain Name release in the media
“In theory, this means a member of the public could soon register a URL using a business’ name and the .au tag, without having any ties to the company itself”.
Alexi Boyd, CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA), said last week that bad actors could imitate small business online by sniping their .au domain names.
“We are concerned that if priority registration isn’t extended, cyber criminals could purchase .au domain names and create ‘shell sites’ or ‘ghost sites’ impersonating legitimate businesses, potentially using online booking forms to gather information and/or money from the business’ clients,” she said.
COSBOA also fears members of the public could soon acquire .au URLs and effectively hold them for ransom, forcing business to pay compensation for .au URLs matching their names.
It’s important to snap up your business’ .au domain during the priority period because when registrations open to the general public, anyone could claim your business’ name for their website. By registering your business with an .au domain, it can help you to prevent online security threats: If an online criminal were to claim your domain name, they may try to impersonate your business in fraudulent activity like business email compromise
“If you want it, small business owners, I urge you to take a few minutes and a few dollars to register it or potentially face someone else grabbing it and using it to digitally ambush your business, to demand big dollars later to surrender it to you, or misuse it to masquerade as you or to help them engage in cybercrime,” he said. “I’m not surprised so few people know about this as the public awareness campaign has been less than impactful, but I want to make sure small businesses avoid a horrible surprise when they find someone else is using or misusing the shortened version of their key digital asset being their domain name.”
Mr Billson said the consequences of not registering an existing business name by the deadline could be catastrophic for operators.
