Domain battle hits the bottle

Controversial investor Nicholas Bolton's Bottle Domains company yesterday successfully applied for a Supreme Court injunction to block Australia's domain name regulator from terminating its accreditation. But the case will flare up again today.

.au Domain Administration (auDA) terminated Bottle's accreditation earlier this week due to security issues.

But the court granted a temporary interim injunction late yesterday, allowing the reinstatement of Bottle Domains' accreditation until the matter could be heard on 22 April. De-accreditation would stop Bottle Domains from being able to provide its domain name services.

auDA said it had applied to the court this morning to "seek clarification as to the effect of the court's orders".

According to Bottle Domains, the appeal was being heard this morning at 10am.

auDA said that it had terminated Bottle Domain's accreditation because the company had committed a serious breach of its registrar agreement.

"auDA has a duty to the Commonwealth Government and the Australian internet community to administer the .au domain name system in the best interests of the Australian and internet community and to preserve the stability and integrity of the .au domain name system," it said on its website.

auDA CEO Chris Disspain would not comment further on the matter.

Bottle Domains said it would issue a formal statement when the outcome of auDA's appeal was known.