GoDaddy: EU Domain Registry Hijacked

According to the president of GoDaddy, one of the Internet’s largest domain registrars, Europe’s new .eu top-level domain has been hijacked by “phantom” registrars, The Register reports.

The news comes from a recent blog posting by GoDaddy founder and President Bob Parsons, according to The Register.

Parsons blasted the owner of the .eu registry, EURid, for giving the OK to hundreds of these “phantom” companies that represented themselves as various different entities in order to obtain more than one domain, The Register reports.

Parsons says these companies took away the majority of the 1.4 million .eu domains registered since its opening last week, according to The Register. For more, read 390,000 Applications for .EU Names in First 100 Minutes.

Parsons accused EURid of allowing hundreds of companies to be registered under the same contact information, in effect allowing the same companies to bid for multiple domains when each company is entitled to only one, The Register reports.

Once a company was registered, it was put in a virtual line where it could bid for a specific .eu domain, according to The Register. If that domain was available, it was granted to the company, and if it was not, the company was directed to the back of the line to wait for a chance at another domain, The Register reports.

Of the 1,570 registered companies, The Register found that at least 630, or 40 percent, were registered with matching contact information. One single company is currently responsible for 350, or 22 percent, of the total registered domains, according to The Register.

Parsons says the process not only alienated the companies that registered legitimately as single entities, but it will also affect end users because they’ll most likely have to pay exorbitant fees for domains when they’re offered up or auctioned off, The Register reports.

An EURid spokesperson told The Register, “Each registrar had to show us proof of the company registration. They had to sign a registrar agreement, follow the regulations, show proof of their existence and deposit 10,000 euros.”

If a company is found to have misrepresented itself to EURid, its registered domain names will be temporarily suspended, The Register reports.

Regardless, EURid still faces charges that it failed to address the issue before the bulk of Europe’s top-level domain was scooped up by a handful of companies that misrepresented themselves.

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