I received an e-mail today from auDA today regarding the monetisation of domains in the .au namespace. They are opening up public discussion on if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Basically we have all landed on pages that are just full of either Google Adsens pages or Affiliate Links.
auDA The 'Close & Substantial Connection' Rule
It has come to auDA's attention that some registrants have been using the “close and substantial connection” rule to register large numbers of domain names apparently for the primary purpose of capturing web traffic earning revenue from advertising. This practice is commonly known as “domain monetisation”.
We currently have many problems with phishing sites all over the place and in my opinion this will end up being domain-spam. We seriously do not need this and sould do everything we can to help keep the .au namespace as clean as possible. If someone wants to create a domain for this purpose then that is fine though it should be a real name and not a variation of a popular name mispelt. The reputation's of the company or individual who has an internet presence should not be misrepresented along the way that such common errors of names or Microsoft for example (Microsft a very common mistake I still make). The domain name should aslo not be a celebrity or common name that is trying to mis-represent a person or company who has a name that is popular in the publics mind and currently does not have an internet presence.
There are some specific examples and questions on the details contained within that pdf file linked above which I will write about in a little greater detail later and answer the specifics then.
http://www.auda.org.au/reviews/monetisation-2006/
http://www.auda.org.au/news-archive/auda-14102005/
http://icannwiki.org/Parked_Domain_Monetization
http://www.google.com/domainpark/
netweb.blog... 