Australian Gripe Site Back Up Following Domain Name Deleted

Deleted domain back in hands of gripe site.

What happens when you register a .au domain name for a gripe site regarding a politician behind Australia’s push for net censorship? It gets censored.

That’s what happened to the registrant of stephenconroy.com.au, who created the web site as a satirical stab at politician Stephen Conroy, who is right now Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in Australia. Conroy is behind plans for creating a country-wide firewall of sorts.

Shortly following registering the domain name, the registrant received a notice from .au administrator auDA informing it that it needed to provide evidence of its eligibility to register the domain name (i.e., some sort of connection to the name). The registrant was allegedly given only a few hours to respond, and then the site was taken down. It was then given 14 days to provide proof of eligibility, although the registrant claims auDA’s offices were closed during that period and auDA didn’t respond.

The domain was in pending delete status during this time, and then it expired. So the registrant was able to re-register stephenconroy.com.au. Just to be sure, it also formed a business named “StephenConroy” to prove eligibility to register the domain.

The domain right now shows a “censored” graphic and forwards to the gripe site’s fresh domain name, Stephen-Conroy.com. On the .com namespace, hopefully it’s out of the reach of Australian regulators.