Many people said the .com boom was reaching an end and they were correct. To an extent. The big country down under that always seems to behind the times what they forgot about. According to many industry experts, one of which is John Davidson, Australian domain names are set to soar in value.

To the tune of a cool quarter of a million dollars, John Davidson owns an impressive portfolio of worldwide domain names. As the country is seen as the next big thing, his interests have turned to Australian .com.au domains. In an exclusive interview to Domain Name World, John offers his opinions.

John declares: "Australia has always been seen by the rest of the world to be somehow 'backward' in all aspects of technology. Don't get me wrong, I love Australian people, but when it comes to innovation - especially where the internet is concerned - they are lacking a few years to say the least."

He further adds: "However, Australians have something on the web to be proud about. Their .com.au domain names and their potential value. To give you an idea of what I mean, firstly allow me to clarify the situation down under and why it is a gold mine ready to be discovered."

"Australia is one of the only countries in the world to have had a domain name governing body - the AUDA. This organisation is made up of CEOs and Senior Management at Australian Domain name registrars. They effectively run the Australian domain name market", continues Davidson.

The relaxation of laws by the AUDA seems to have triggered the .com.au boom in Australia, and John Davidson explains why this has taken place.

"During the past ten years, it was not possible to register a .com.au (or .net.au) unless you had a 'close and substantial connection to it'. This means you could basically only register a domain name in Australia if it reflected yourself or your business. Joe Bloggs in the street didn't have a right to register 'loans.com.au' unless he ran a business that meant he had a 'claim' to that domain name. In addition to this, there were extremely stringent measures in place to stop anyone transferring a domain name to another person. In short it was difficult to register good domain names and laborious and difficult to sell them", explains John.