auDA’s role
.au Domain Administration Ltd. (auDA) is the administrator of the .au country code top-level domain (ccTLD).
Part of auDA’s role is to develop and implement the policies which govern .au domain names and ensure the .au domain is safe, secure, stable and accessible.
auDA’s role as administrator and self-regulatory policy body for the .au domain namespace is based on an endorsement provided by the Federal Government and the authorisation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
About domain names
A domain name is an address on the internet.
The two uses of domain names people will be most familiar with are website addresses – e.g. www.auda.org.au, and email addresses, where the domain name follows the ‘@’ symbol e.g. [email protected].
Computers find websites by searching not for domain names, but for a long and unique set of numbers associated with every domain name. These numbers are called IP addresses. An example of an IP address is 192.160.1.50
The system used to seamlessly match domains and IP addresses is called the Domain Name System or DNS.