Thanks in large part to a comment on a previous blog entry, I've been looking at what appears to be a high-level and expensive scam to get hold of the best .eu domains.
GoDaddy and Tucows are not happy about it as it seems that a number of companies in the US and Europe spotted a loophole in EURid's registrar accreditation system and have registered dozens of different registrar companies, thereby massively increasing their chances of getting hold the high-value .eu domains.
It ended up being worthwhile for one registrar to incorporate a large number of different companies and pay the 10,000 euro so they had a better chance of getting .eu domains. And if you think about it, 1.4 million domains divided by the number of registrars (1,570) comes to roughly 900 domains per registrar. With a good domain name able to fetch tens of thousands of euros, the investment is clearly worth it – you just need the capital and the know-how.
It is perhaps no surprise that the biggest number of shell registrars created – 350 – came from New York because the US system for creating a new company is much easier and cheaper than it is in Europe.
But companies in Germany, Canada, Holland, Austria and the UK also got in on the act and at least two-fifths of the companies buying .eu domains when they went on sale were shell registrars.
One of the main people behind this was Raymond King – the ex-CEO of Snapnames – who has registered a large number of companies recently and used them to act as .eu registrars. If you want to track down who the others were, it shouldn't be too hard – the list of accredited registrars and their contact details are here.
EURid is coming under some pressure here, but I spoke to them for an article that has now appeared on The Register and their take is that each was a separate entity and that competition was good for .eu.
The argument is going to look shaky though if what GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons predicts comes true and huge numbers of .eu domains suddenly start appearing on auction sites.
One interesting side-issue to this is the possible confusion of .eu domains with the American .edu top-level domain for education establishments – schools, universities and the like. Brett Fausett has done a quick scan of American universities and they all appear to have gone.
We shall have to see how big an issue this becomes.
