The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Bruce Billson has called on small businesses 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.
Billson said that with all the challenges small-business owners and leaders are facing now, “the last thing anyone needs is someone ripping off their domain name”.
The advice comes ahead of the 20 September deadline for owners of .com.au, .net.au and similar domain names to have priority access to the abridged .au domain name equivalents, and Billson expressed his concern about the plans to allow an open slather sale of business internet names under the new .au domain.
“I implore all small-business owners to take a few minutes to work out if they want the shortened .au domain or will be unhappy for someone else to have it,” Billson said. “I urge you to take a few minutes and 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 cyber-crime…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.”
The .au Domain Administration (auDA) was urged by the ASBFEO to extend the 20 September deadline but the request was denied.
“All I can do is try and make sure small and family business are not caught short when it comes to the shortened .au domain name,” Billson said. “With five weeks to go until this artificially imposed deadline, I have become very concerned that the rollout of this change has not been properly explained and promoted. My engagement with small businesses and a wide range of organisations representing small and family businesses is that overwhelmingly they are either not aware of this change or they do not understand the potential consequences.”
The Ombudsman also raised concerns about domain name ‘squatting’ and the potential for cybercrime. The Australian Cyber Security Centre Issued an alert warning earlier that the new domain name category could allow cybercriminals to facilitate fraudulent activity like business email compromise which can lead to invoice fraud. The ACSC website warns: “Opportunistic cybercriminals could register your .au domain name in an attempt to impersonate your business.”
Billson called on auDA anew to re-think its position and extend the exclusive period for businesses to register their corresponding .au name by 12 months.
“The deadline needs to be significantly extended,” Billson said. “We are not unhappy about the introduction of the .au domain but these crucial internet addresses should be available to the right people first and they should properly be notified about the change and given reasonable time to act.
“Small- and family-business owners and managers have been working flat out just trying to keep their doors open and to serve their communities. Just as they were hoping to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic and various rolling natural disasters, they’ve had to navigate crushing supply chain disruptions and leaping input costs and soaring energy bills.
“The idea that after all this, your customers can be whisked away by a competitor taking your online identity is outrageous. I am concerned the massive consequences of the .au introduction has not been sufficiently explained by auDA,” Billson concluded.
