Google just launched a number of YouTube international sites: “Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Ireland, and the UK.”

Given Australia has its own Google, can we expect a YouTube Australia any time soon? Maybe. But it looks like first they’ll have to kick off the domain squatter that owns youtube.com.au — some guy called Aaron whose contact address is a Hotmail account. Which is interesting, because normally to own a .com.au address you have to have a registered company or business name that is related to the domain.

NZ is more liberal, and similarly youtube.co.nz is owned by someone on an india.com account.

No doubt there will be similar issues in other territories. Which makes you wonder why these companies don’t nab their domains around the world when they get their first million or two in venture capital (like Amazon has; they’ve owned amazon.com.au for years). It’d save heartache later.