It was formed in 1999 to manage the .au ccTLD with the endorsement of the Australian Government and the authority of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The operation of the .au ccTLD began in 1986 with the delegation of .au administration to Robert Elz of the University of Melbourne by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

By 1996, as businesses realised the commercial potential of the Internet, management of registrations became too great a job for Elz to accomplish by himself.

[4] However, disenchantment in the way the .au domain was run persisted, leading to demand for a single regulatory body to oversee the namespace.

In recognition of the deteriorating state of .au, the Australian Internet community – primarily through several key industry associations and personalities – held a series of forums to work out a way forward.

[8] After two years of internal struggles, ADNA was renamed .au Domain Administration (auDA) and adopted a new constitution, procedures, and board.

The inaugural board of the new organisation was elected in April 1999, and began the task of trying to help mould a new framework of policies for the .au domain space.

These reviews utilised experts from relevant fields to consider public and stakeholder submissions and feedback and devise policies.

[16] In 2001, as a result of the Competition Model Advisory Panel's report, the operation of five key .au registries – .com.au, .net.au, .org.au, .asn.au and .id.au was put to tender.

[22] See Also: .au § Registration Policies and Rules Informed by the original domain eligibility criteria developed by Robert Elz, auDA has maintained a policy of requiring registrants to have either an exact match or a "close and substantial connection"[23] to their desired domain name.

In 2016, the auDA board announced its decision to introduce direct registrations in .au – for example "yourname.au" – after the submission of the final report of the 2015 Names Policy Panel.

It was launched on 24 March 2022. auDA is responsible for handling complaints and reducing fraud in domain name registration.

Participants in the auDRP Process are required to declare whether or not the relevant domain name is subject to a court proceeding.

For example, an Australian Court may make orders concerning a domain name on the basis of trade mark infringement, passing off, or misleading or deceptive conduct.

Members are entitled to vote at General Meetings of auDA and to nominate and elect representatives to the board of directors.

[30] On 24 March 2022, auDA launched a new namespace, .au direct which provides a greater choice of names for Australian websites and email addresses.

After that time, matching .au direct domain names without a priority application become available to be registered by eligible members of the public.