.eu In Freefall - Thousands Of Domains Dropping Each Hour

The .eu ccTLD is reaping the whirlwind as thousands of domains are dropped every hour now. The ccTLD, incompetently managed by EURid, was warehoused and squatted to such an extent that businesses and individuals throughout the European Union lost confidence in the extension. According to EURid’s only statistics, over 54% of .eu ccTLD is warehoused and potentially cybersquatted as of 31/December/2006. The .eu ccTLD peaked at approximately 2.6 Million domains registered. At the moment, it stands at 2455787 domains. The question now is about how low it can go.

The danger now is that most of the domains being dropped will be in the 1.2M or so of individual and business registrations. This is the core of the ccTLD, indeed the core of any domain. Without it, the TLD has no credibility. And given the way that EURid collaborated with the non-EU cybersquatters and warehousers, there is very little reason for people to hold on to their .eu domains other than for defensive registration purposes.
The European Commission who awarded the contract to run .eu ccTLD to the bungling EURid venture have only themselves and their “expert” advisors to blame for this mess. The only thing that would redeem the .eu ccTLD is the redelegation of the .eu ccTLD to a competent and well run registry and the obliteration of the warehousing and cybersquatting operations. But the fools in the European Commission are oblivious to the reality of the situation. Until real action is taken the market has decided, quite bluntly, that .eu domains are the junk bonds of the domain industry.

Tags: Irishblogs,Eurid, .eu Statistics, Domains, Webhoster Stats, Internet Statistics, Cyberwarehousing, domainnames

Written by John McCormac on April 28th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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