Reviews are underway for both .au, to review dispute resolution policy, and .us, for the policies and requirements for the contract renewal that is due to take place later in 2013.

In .au, auDA has a consultation of the the Dispute Resolution Policy (auDRP) underway, and for which the comment period has been extended to 28 February. The goal of the auDRP is to provide a cheaper, speedier alternative to litigation for the resolution of disputes between the registrant of a .au domain name and a party with competing rights in the domain name.

The auDRP commenced on 1 August 2002 and there have been 300 proceedings lodged to date. A ten year review of the auDRP is currently underway to ensure that it remains an effective and appropriate dispute resolution mechanism.

An Issues Paper, available here, was released in November 2012 for public comment.

For .us, the NTIA who administers the contract for ccTLD for the United States is seeking input from interested parties on the policies and requirements that should govern the .us TLD.

The current contract expires on 31 August, 2013. The NTIA has advised that given the expiration date of this contract, the NTIA will utilise the comments received in response to their call for comments in the procurement process leading to the award of a new .us TLD contract.

Comments are due by 4 March, 2013.

More information is available from the NTIA website here.