[Auugps] Request relating to our AUUG trading name

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Monday, 15 September 2014 at 13:24:43 +1000, steve jenkin wrote:
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[partially tidied]

> The DNS name \223auug.com.au\224 is already registered to Joshua and
> \223Triplethink\224, though the webpage says it\222s \223parked\224.
>
> I\222m not sure how he managed that under the Australian Rules for
> \221.com.au\222. Does he have a Trademark?

> The ABR, Australian Business Register, is public and well known. No
> excuse for it not to be searched beforehand and a suitable _free_
> name chosen.

But maybe he specifically wants AUUG.  It would be interesting to know
why.  It would also be interesting to consider to what extent we want
to continue to flog a dead horse.  More on this further down.

> Even if he gets AUUG Inc to be deregistered, there\222s still the
> unincorporated AUUG Preservation Society that should rightfully block
> his registration.

Can an unincorporated society block the registration of a company?

> An often used mechanism for DNS name conflicts is to offer a landing
> page that points to the various entities.  He could point to
> auug.org.au and his own site, even automatically redirecting to his
> within 3 seconds...

Yes, this would be OK in the DNS space.  As I understand it, the real
issue is that he can't register the business.

> I raised this issue recently with Lawrie Brown because of a comment
> in last year\222s PCUG report.  He very graciously replied, although
> he\222s on leave in the UK, saying it was still stuck in Limbo with
> the Victorian Dept, despite years of effort.
>
> The Victorian registrar of Associations, I\222m told, apparently
> won\222t deregister AUUG Inc because the Public Officer (now
> Secretary) last known to them is uncontactable and didn\222t advise
> the registrar at the time of their resignation.

In fact, it's much worse than that.  This was one of our concerns in
the board meetings 10 years ago; "we" (AUUG) had seriously neglected
our paperwork since long before any of the current board had been
elected.  My recollection (this is going back at least 10 years) is
that David Purdue as public officer was going to do something about
it.

> I\222m not sure about the Registered Address.  I\222d have thought
> that a common enough occurrence for there to be an administrative
> process, but I\222m told there\222s not.

Yes, we were a little surprised about this too.

> The wash-up:
>  - technically AUUG Inc should have been automatically deregistered
>    by Victoria, and

It should?  I think you're basing your assumptions on NSW, and back 10
years ago we noted that Victoria (as usual?) has somewhat baroque
laws.

> I don\222t have sympathy for Joshua Young and his company: they
> know, or should\222ve known, the rules for DNS registration in
> Australia [thanks to \221kre' for those, clearest and most logical
> in the world, IMO]

Just because they're clear doesn't mean they are what people expect.
And we're still talking about business registration, not DNS (which,
as you'll notice, *is* registered, though not in Australia).

But you raise a valid point: what is our attitude to AUUG.com?  My
take is that a preservation society run by very few people shouldn't
stand in the way of a business registration.  I'd suggest putting the
current situation to Joshua and asking him to discuss with his legal
people how we can solve the situation.  One possibility might be to
get his people to chase down the deregistration of AUUG Inc for us in
return for our dropping any rights to use the AUUG name for commercial
purposes.  Since the preservation society isn't registered, I don't
see an issue there, but it would be nice to get him to acknowledge
that we will continue to use the name in that connection (only).

Comments?
Greg
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