The blame game starts with American companies accusing EURid, the nonprofit organization in charge of assigning .eu domains, of rigging the system to favor European companies, The Wall Street Journal reported. EURid claims American companies filed improperly, or in many cases too late.
For example, ATT.com directs surfers to the phone giant, while ATT.eu goes to a Polish company that makes stainless steel products. AT&T, the phone company, applied for the European domain two months before the Polish company did, but was rejected because of an error in its filing. AT&T said it was going to appeal the decision, according to the report.
Other prominent European domains included in the dispute are Hertz, NBC, EDS and Eurostar. Rental car company Hertz applied for Hertz.eu but it was received 14 minutes after the application for an Italian car speaker manufacturer. Eurostar, a train service, lost Eurostar.eu to a Dutch company.
According to EURid’s rules, the first company to register a name when the suffix becomes available receives the domain. EURid received more than 100,000 registration applications in the first three hours of availability. More than 2 million active .eu domain names have been registered, according to EURid.eu. More than 20 percent of registrations were invalid because of technical inconsistencies in the filing documents.
U.S. companies claim that the process for assigning the names was complicated. The first phase was limited to businesses with a European presence that held a European trademark. Other companies and individuals needed to apply through EURid-licensed registrars.
“Speculators who profit from snagging popular Internet names found it easy to weave a path through the regulations,” WSJ.com reporterWilliam M. Buckeley said. “Some set up phony registrars to file thousands of applications on behalf of affiliated companies. According to EURid’s records, 31 registrars listed the same address in Salzburg, Austria. SnapNames.com, a closely held Internet-names business in Portland, Ore., listed 14 different registrars and another 17 at the home address of its chairman, Sudhir Bhagwan.”
Go Daddy President Bob Parsons wrote on his blog that one-third of the 1,500 registrars who applied for .eu names didn’t have websites. He indicated this meant they’re looking to sell the domains or set up sites plastered with advertising.
While EURid has acknowledged some people are abusing the naming system, it only recently responded to fraud complaints. It cancelled 74,000 names last month entered by registrars that intended to use the names themselves.
“The Europeans are playing the game: What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable,” Marc Ostrofsky, a domain name investment firm president, told WSJ.com. “It’s very, very unfair.”
