May 1, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The recent rollout of the new European .eu domain name and the land rush for registration has been described as both a screaming success, and a scandalous sham.
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The good news is that with more than 1.5 million .eu registrations a week since the domain became available April 7, the success of regional domains continues to be validated.
However, the outcry over the .eu landrush process, and the prospect of bogus prospectors gaming the system, has widened beyond companies turned off because they did not get .eu domains. In fact, the European Commission has ordered the administrator of the domain, registry EURid (eurid.eu), to probe irregularities of the rollout, and to revoke domain registrations that are illegitimate, according to a report out of Europe.
The loudest criticism of the .eu launch came from the US, however, where domain dealer Go Daddy's Bob Parsons called the land rush a "fiasco" on his blog. While the land rush period is supposed to provide a fair process, the introduction of .eu was a match of "an inept registry" and "crafty businessmen," who, according to Parsons, created "shell registrars" to increase their bids on the new names. Parsons complains businesses needed only to attest to their own legitimacy, and pay the 10,000 Euro deposit to qualify.
Parsons continued to slam the .eu rollout, highlighting the fact that registrars were able to opt out of being listed, despite being accredited. Increasing his estimates of the number of "phantom registrars" to possibly more than 1,000, Parsons also responded sharply to EURid's contentions that the process was fair, and registrars were checked.
Parsons was largely backed up and thanked by the respondents on his blog. He was also asked why, if the .eu landrush was open to gaming, did Go Daddy refrain from its own gaming on behalf of its customers. Parsons responded, "That's not what we do here. As it stood we used three real registrars."
Not all observers viewed the process as negatively as Parsons and his supporters. Afilias (afilias.info) spokesperson Heather Read says the process was generally viewed as legitimate according to her registry company. "The only criticisms we heard were that there might have been some slowness, and a lack of transparency," she says.
Read says the shell or phantom registrars are nothing new, and even if registrars had been checked for ICANN accreditation, the barriers there are still not high enough.
"That isn't a new phenomenon to .eu," she says. "That's just a result of the process."
As for the connection speed and transparency issues, Read says there were reports that registrars were experiencing slowdowns, and that the process was not as transparent as it could have been.
Nevertheless, the .eu rollout bodes well for regional top level domains, including India's .in, and may signal that the long-awaited .asia domain will also become available soon.
"Registrars are very focused on the regional TLDs," says Read. "We think there will be ongoing interest for the next few years."
