EURid Sues 400 Phantom Registrars - 4 MillionEuros Of Trouble

The magnitude of EURid’s decision to sue 400 phantom registrars for breach of contract is only just becoming apparent. In order to become a .eu registrar, an up-front fee of 10000 Euros had to be paid. This entitled a registrar to register 1000 .eu domains before topping up. With 400 registrars each paying 10000 Euros each, that’s 4 Million Euros. The phantom registrars could, theoretically have registered 400,000 .eu domains. That’s a significant part of the .eu gTLD. However EURid has put only 74K of Ovidio Limited’s domains on hold. This means that either the Ovidio owners distributed the domains over these registrars or more domains have yet to be dealt with.

However other phantom registrars still exist and action has not been taken against them yet. No doubt EURid’s legal department is examining their cases. Taking action against them will only serve to increase the credibility of the .eu gTLD.

Some of the domains that Ovidio Limited warehoused are now due for release in August. They appear to be political party domains.

Tags: IrishBlogs,.EU, Ovidio Limited, Ovidio, Domains, .eu Fiasco, Internet Statistics, Eurid, Cyberwarehousing, domainnames

Written by John McCormac on July 25th, 2006 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Domains And Statistics.