April 23rd, 2006

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.eu Fiasco 700K .squatted/speculative/abusive eu domains registered?

The true number of bogus .eu registrars is not known but indications are that it is over 700. The mathematics of the disaster that EUrid facilitated are simple.

700 Bogus Registrars

Each registrar has to prepay 10000 Euros.

A new .eu registration costs each registrar 10 Euros.

With the minimum prepayment, each registrar can register 1000 domains.

700 bogus registrars * 1000 domains = 700,000 .eu domains.

So if each bogus registrar managed to register 1000 domains in the landrush, then the number of squatted or speculative .eu domains could be upwards of 700,000. That’s quite a significant percentage of the number of registered .eu domains.

700 * 1000 = 700000.

That’s the potential size of EUrid’s problem if each bogus registrar managed to use their prepayment.

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Written by John McCormac on April 23rd, 2006 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Domains And Statistics and News Bytes.

Commission Tells EUrid To Investigate .eu Abuse?

According to a report on the European Affairs Channel website, the Commission has asked EUrid to investigate fraudulent registrations registrations where necessary revoke the domain registrations. The written response from a Commission spokesman is posted.

Apparently the Commission is aware of the problem and has brought it to the attention of EUrid. EUrid is currently assessing whether there are grounds for legal action. If EUrid finds irregularities then the Commission response said that:

“Measures would depend on the nature of the irregularities. Article 20 of Regulation 874/2004 establishes that, should the investigations confirm that the holder of the domain names have breached the terms of registration, the Registry can revoke those domain names at its own initiative. This decision however, shall be taken by the Registry in the light of the .eu legal framework.”

So it is all down to the people in EUrid finding out if there was abusive and speculative domain registrations by bogus registrars who gamed the simpleton designed system.

So do we expect a whitewash where EUrid will absolve itself of blame or a mass termination of bogus registrars and their clearly speculative and abusive domain registrations? This will be a test of the people in EUrid’s honour and integrity. Will they have the guts to admit that they screwed up and resolve the problem? The evidence is there in EUrid’s system and records.

Nothing less than the credibility of .eu is at stake.

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Written by John McCormac on April 23rd, 2006 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Domains And Statistics and News Bytes.

.eu Fiasco - EUrid Launched Half-Ready Registry!

The fiasco that has become the .eu story took another nosedive when it emerged that EUrid launched without a facility to enable domain owners to transfer domains. People who had purchased .eu domains and had sold them on could not transfer ownership. Apparently the people in EUrid never expected .eu domains to be resold. If that really is the case, these EUrid people are too stupid to be in the domain business!

Domain owner transfer is a critical part of any modern registry system. But given EUrid’s disctinctly provincial flavour (it is the spawn of the Belgian, Swedish and Italian ccTLD registries), such an omission is not surprising. The idea of domains being traded and sold is quite anathema to the management of many ccTLDs in Europe.

The internet, it is said, routes around damage. The classic method for circumventing such antiquated regulations is to leave the registrant data but change the nameserver and contact data. So while as far as the registry is concerned, there has been no real change, the domain has long been traded on and the bills get paid.

But to launch a landrush without a proper working domain registrant transfer facility points to a staggering in the level of stupidity and incompetence in the management of EUrid. No amount of press releases to gullible “technology journalists” is going to make up for the damage these fools have caused the credibility of .eu gTLD. Apparently EUrid is working on the problem.

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Written by John McCormac on April 23rd, 2006 with 2 comments.
Read more articles on Domains And Statistics and News Bytes.