Trading names or family surnames that are not registered companies or registered business names are also out.
His attitude is that the US system, where whoever registers the name first gets it - unless a major company with a recognised trading name objects - "is a real mess, and causes too many arguments".
The News Corp oration may well agree, having been beaten to the highly prized "news.com" domain name in the US by a tiny start-up called C/Net News.
Elz has also disappointed two gentlemen whose surnames, and company names, are Said and Moon. They wanted to obtain the domain names "said.com.au" and "moon.com.au"
Although he may choose to relent in some cases, Elz is highly unlikely to approve as a domain name any word that appears in the dictionary.
Elz's position as "top-level domain administrator" - which gives him authority over the assignment of all domain names under the ".au" suffix -arises largely from the fact that in June 1985 he plugged a cable into a computer at Melbourne University.
That cable connected through the University of Hawaii to a network of US universities and research establishments. At the time, nobody knew that that network would grow into the Internet, or that the ability to "own" a domain name might have considerable value.
In an experience that typifies life on the Internet, Elz found, immediately after he plugged it in, that the cable didn't work. When he pulled it out, he discovered two wires had been connected to the same terminator. He had to rewire the cable, and plug it in again.
After spending an honours year of an arts/law degree at Melbourne University studying computer science, Elz has spent his entire career writing complex programming code, administering university networks and exploring the intricacies of hubs, routers and the TCP/IP communications protocols on which the Internet is based. He therefore believes he knows better than most how the Internet ought to work.
And because the rare disputes that have arisen over the control of national Internet domain names have in the past been settled simply by the US-based Internet Assigned Numbers Authority - another volunteer, not unlike Elz, called John Postel - cutting an entire country off until the disputing parties settled their differences, next month's meeting is likely to be a particularly courteous one.
Elz lives in a rented house in the outer Melbourne suburb of McLeod and drives a rusting 1980 Pulsar. When companies like News Interactive, a News Limited subsidiary, are reported in the computer press to be considering suing him, Telstra, and/or Melbourne University over domain names - a report News Corporation denies - his response is mild amusement.
"I've got no money, and no assets," he laughs, "so that doesn't worry me a bit. I've no interest in money."
But News Interactive's editor, Alan Farrelly, voices the feelings of many businesses seeking a home on the Internet when he declares: "We have urged that the present system be changed to take commercial realities more into account. We support a proper registration system such as now operates in the US and the UK. It is our hope this can be achieved, rapidly, without any recourse to legal threats or action."
Aside from the typical programmer's passion for Coke and steak and chips (interchangeable with pizza), Elz seems interested in little other than the Internet, and the programming of networked computers, possibly because he has little time for much else. He was certainly not interested, for instance, in posing for a photograph for this article.
When the rush for commercial domain names first overwhelmed the system just over a year ago, causing one of Elz's helpers to abandon his unpaid task, a temporary replacement with differing, but equally vehement ideas, comprehensively ignored Elz's guidelines.
For some months, practically any application was approved, including, for instance, news.com.au (happily for The News Corporation, actually registered to them).
Less happily for a company called Employment Pty Ltd , the name "employment.com.au" was granted to a specialist recruitment advertising agency called Adcorp Australia , which had registered the business name Employment Opportunities Australia.
Steven Tintor, a Wollongong resident whose association with a Sydney Internet service provider, Ausnet Services , gave him an early view of the Internet's potential, had established several companies, hoping to obtain domain names. They included Classifieds Pty Ltd, Science Pty Ltd, and Medical Pty Ltd. They were intended, say colleagues, as the foundation for businesses on the Web. Although Tintor was lucky enough to get those approved, "employment.com.au" was employed elsewhere.
This week, Tintor told the AFR that he intended to "take that to court one day". He also indicated that he might take the AFR to court one day, too, if it printed any of his comments, and followed up with a fax pointing out: "I hereby give no expressed consent to this article or any other articles you may wish to write in any of your of your (sic) publications."
Since Elz has taken back direct responsibility for the .COM domain, he has been far more diligent. When Email Metals tried to register two of its trading companies, Pipeline Supplies and Union Steel, using the same ACN number as the parent, he picked it up. Email Metals is still awaiting a resolution.
In the US, a company called Network Solutions has been assigning and administering domain names since 1993, under a contract with the National Science Foundation. It charges a registration fee for the first two years, and $50 for each subsequent years. This week, it announced that 25,000 domain names which had not been paid for - roughly half the total US complement -were about to be erased.
In late 1994, three prominent local Internet identities tried to establish a private company called Australian Internet Registry, to take over the registration of domain names. Following speculation in the computer press that AIR might "lease" addresses for an annual fee of about $1, the move was abandoned. At the time, Elz weighed in with a public Internet message that described most other messages as "unbelievably cretinous and obnoxious", and observed that it was beyond belief that "anyone, under any circumstances at all, would treat anything written in the computing press in Australia (or probably elsewhere) as if it had even a grain of truth".
In an interview with the AFR, Elz said that he was prepared to consider suggestions to improve the registration process. "It absolutely has to be made faster," he said. One reason it isn't, he suggests, is that applicants frequently misread the application form, available on the World Wide Web at http://www.aunic.net/aunic
One suggestion from within the industry is that the ASC should take over administration of the .COM domain, and issue companies with an Internet address as part of the registration process. Another is that a not-for-profit organisation administer it.
One thing that seems certain is that in future, Australian domain names will carry a registration fee. "Eventually there will be fees," Elz said. "I'm thinking of $20 a year for a company's first name, $200 for the second, $2,000 for the third, etc, so that businesses who need a name would probably get them."
In the meantime, a Norfolk Island entrepreneur, Rob Ryan, has established a completely new domain for the Australian territory, and hopes to woo Australian companies with far less rigid rules, albeit with the final initials "nf", rather than "au".
To obtain the name employment.com.nf, for example, would cost a company $250, with no requirement for a registered business name. Ryan's company, Norfolk Island Data Services, which is working with a Sydney-based Internet service provider, RealNet Access , also plans to auction the rights to personal domain names - smith.nf for instance. The bidding will start at $1,000.