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Over 1 Million .eu Domains and Counting 137

Posted by samzenpus from the buy-them-up dept.
gavint writes "In the first 12 hours since "Landrush" registration of .eu Domains begun at 11:00 CET, over 1 million have been registered. Predictions of .eu becoming the second biggest domain after .com look like they may become true, with Nominet being responsible for "over four million" .uk domains, the second biggest namespace. The UK initially led the way during Landrush but have since been overtaken by Germany, with over a quarter of all registered domains. Meanwhile many "Sunrise" period applications where businesses are able to protect domains where they hold a prior right remain unprocessed, although these domains cannot be registered yet during Landrush. Over 1,000 registration agents were only allowed one connection each to EURid's servers in order to prevent problems and ensure fairness."
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Over 1 Million .eu Domains and Counting More

Over 1 Million .eu Domains and Counting

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  • Hmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:18AM (#15090256) Homepage
    How do you pronounce "eu"? If it's how I think it is, "fuck.eu" would be a very nice domain to have.
  • My last name is gone, my first name is gone.

    But I have got gloogle.com ;-)

  • big in GB... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joe 155 ( 937621 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:24AM (#15090268) Journal
    I can't help but wonder with the amount of people registering in the GB, 257,368 at present, if this is meaning people are becoming more accepting of the idea of Britian being considered a part of europe. Normally people really try to avoid any connection between their company and europe because people just don't like to deal with anything from "there"... is the net leading the way towards a greater intergration?...

    • Re:big in GB... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by taskforce ( 866056 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:28AM (#15090279) Homepage
      I think many people are going to misinterpret this article. I doubt very much that any more than 10% of the registrations (at a liberal guess) would be actual companies registering .eu domains. Most of these are probably going to be resellers and squatters, which is why the UK proportion is so high.

      I can't think of any reason why a UK company would buy a .EU domain unless it was out to alienate it's customers, market to the rest of the EU under a different domain, or simply just bought every TLD for it's domain name.

      • I can't think of any reason why a UK company would buy a .EU domain unless it was out to alienate it's customers, market to the rest of the EU under a different domain, or simply just bought every TLD for it's domain name.

        For more and more companies - in UK as in all other eu countries - the "home market" is increasingly eu as a whole, not the particular country they're residing in. Their relation to their customers in eu as a whole is as important as the customers in the home country - and a lot more impor

      • We have a .co.uk - im moving to .eu if your activity can be done anywhere in the eu then .eu makes sense - if your 'branded' only in one country then .fr/.de./.gr makes sense there still much nicer than .co.uk is personally speaking.

        We are thinking to drop the .co.uk

      • In my case, this has nothing to do with agreement, or otherwise, for the European Union as an institution. It's:
        1. To defend against pranksters and cybersquatters
        2. A cheap way to show commitment to provide technical support for our customers who trade throughout the EU.
    • I can't help but wonder with the amount of people registering in the GB, 257,368 at present, if this is meaning people are becoming more accepting of the idea of Britian being considered a part of europe.

      Even UKIP.eu is registered! Truly we must be on the dawn of a new era.
    • The young are a lot more "into" computers. IME as a brit anyone under about 30 thinks Europe is a great thing, while those over 50 don't want anything to do with it.
    • ...if this is meaning people are becoming more accepting of the idea of Britian being considered a part of europe.

      Britain IS a part of Europe. It is a geographical fact. You cannot (sensibly) argue with it. Now there are some of us Brits, thankfully a minority so far, who think we should leave the EU but short of hiring a really large tug and towing the British Isles out into the mid-atlantic it will be very hard for them to stop us being a part of Europe.

      Interestingly enough there has been far more ant

  • Question: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Wellington Grey ( 942717 )
    Call me ignorant, but where does all the money for .eu (and the endless .whatever's to come) go? Is it payed into the European Union or some private company?

    -Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
    • It goes to some suit in the registrars. Just like every other business, the Fat Cats always win. This is just another money making SCAM on the part of registrars. Need more money, create a new TLD. Most companies have policies to register as many as they can to protect their BRAND. Lather Wrinse Repeat Its a SCAM.

    • Re:Question: (Score:2, Informative)

      by floorpirate ( 696768 )
      A good portion of the money for a domain goes to whatever organization/company runs the registry. It pays for their staff, equipment, Net connection, etc. Don't know what the .eu domains actually cost, but for most domains, usually around half goes to the registry and the other half to the registrar that the domain was purchased through.
    • No, hosting providers use it to hire limo's [bachhimself.nl]. :)

  • Is this a case of... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:24AM (#15090273)

    The UK initially led the way during Landrush but have since been overtaken by Germany

    ... get your towel off my domain name?

    • Re:Is this a case of... (Score:5, Funny)

      by amliebsch ( 724858 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @12:12PM (#15091059) Journal
      I'm not surprised at all. Ther Germans have a long history of successful landrushing.
      • Ah, for pity's sake, give Poland back their namespace. They're such a nice, inoffensive country. If you had to squat on somebody, could you make it .fr? Granted, we'd eventually come to their aid, too, but we'd drag our heels a bit and lord it over them for the next fifty years while they constantly said "Oh, we had them on the ropes and then you Yanks had to come mess up our master plan".

  • Domain Squatting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cheetah_spottycat ( 106624 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:30AM (#15090284)
    Is anyone surprised? I bet that these are 5% "real" registrations, and 95% domain squatters trying to register every single word from the encyclopedia britannica and all TLAs from 'AAA' to 'ZZZ' in one session.
    • yep, mine pretty obscure one has been squatted.
    • Dunno how well organized the hardcore squatters are, but i managed to snag a nice 3-character domain 19 hours into the landrush.

  • EU is such a silly idea... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:38AM (#15090303) Journal
    Why not... .UN! All members in the United Nations can register one! :-p
    Redundancy and more redundancy for the domain registrars to make money...

    • Re:EU is such a silly idea... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wizzdude ( 755000 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:51AM (#15090327)
      Well, not entirely.

      The European Union is a free trade area so there are import/export duties on goods traded with the zone. There are some businesses who would therefore treat this entire area as one and for them branding themselves under an EU domain would make sense.

      A UN domain would never be used for that reason as it is purely political and not economic.
      • TLDs have no meaning anymore , "brand protection" has diluted the purpose of having TLDs in the first place, everybody just squats their brand on every TLD they can find. ORG is no longer an ORGINSATION, COM is no longer a COMPANY, NET is no longer a NETWORK ENTITY, UK is no longer a UK only TLD etc etc... In short, this is just another money making SCAM.
      • Yes, you're right here, and I was just using my example to illustrate the redundancy. I mean, there's basically no company dealing with the entire EU before this introduction that couldn't register a good domain name, right? The UN example was just to show how that would also introduce TLD redudancy, much like any company in the EU today already having a .com or a national TLD. (but maybe more likely, a .com, national, .biz, .net, .info, and a bunch of other national TLD's)
    • Well if somebody hadn't *cough* cocked up the whole DNS system and thought it through properly before letting the corporations get their fingers in the global DNS pie then we could've ended up with something like:

      uk.com.mycompany.www

      With larger areas such as the EU, australasia, the UN, the americas etc. all having their own TLD. As long as the rules are followed you wouldn't end up with mom-and-pop 'look im running an internet shop' businesses that serve only the surrounding states and all the other regul

  • uk second biggest domain after .com? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:41AM (#15090309)
    According to Nominet http://www.nic.uk/ [www.nic.uk] it's only the forth biggest namespace, not second.
    As far as I know, Germany (over 9.5 million .de-domains) has the second largest namespace.
  • One million new domains?! Eeek! Don't worry, we can still restrict pr0n to just the .xxx domain and happily dance with our properly clothed children in the meadow of Puritanical safety which is .[com|net|org|edu]

    Or something like that. You Europeans are with us on pr0n, right? China? Ok. Russia!?!?!!

    • You Europeans are with us on pr0n, right?

      The Germans and British will be, but good luck convincing the French and Dutch.
      • Say what you will about us Dutch folk, but at least things are out in the open which in return has as a side effect a very low teen pregnancy rate, can you say that about the US and UK? I don't think so, the UK has the highest count within the EU, and the US, ha!, well, look at who heads the country there.. nuff said!

  • Don't mention the landrush (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The UK initially led the way during Landrush but have since been overtaken by Germany, with over a quarter of all registered domains.

    Don't worry, in a couple of years the US will join in and help us take them all back.

  • In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Funny)

    by borgdows ( 599861 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:48AM (#15090321)
    insovietrussiadomainsregister.EU !!

  • some .eus :) (Score:3, Informative)

    by tomasvilda ( 818284 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @07:52AM (#15090328)
    http://www.google.lt/search?q=site:.eu [google.lt] -- http://stilius.net/ [stilius.net]

  • Big mistake because they apparently just held the registration until April 7th instead of helping with any sort of actual registration, so I discover that half a dozen businesses are ahead of me now in the queue.

  • Looking at the stats [eurid.eu], there are currently very few registrations from France.
    Sweden and the Netherlands for instance have more registrations than France with far less inhabitatants. Also Belgium is not that far off from France, while it's a lot smaller.

    What does that say about France's EU feeling?
    • What does that say about France's EU feeling?

      Not much, I think ; historicaly, *.fr has been reserved to chartered companies and trademarks holders, so many french individuals had to buy a .com or .net already. Many companies did, too,because .fr is f*cking expensive. This afnic nonsense is backfiring today, because those who might have been interested are avoiding "continental red tape" (we invented it, so we have developped more strategies than others to turn around it whenever possible) and will probab

    • France was big in minitel Minitel [wikipedia.org] is still a force to be reconed with ?

      wiki: Minitel was often considered as an impediment for a fast deployment of the Internet in France, since it already provided safe and easy online access for many useful services without requiring a personal computer.

      The bbc link in the wiki (dated 2003) reports "Despite reports of its demise, a third of the French still have access to the Minitel network and four million terminals are in daily use."

    • Let us time ;-) I'm not a company, but I registered 6 .eu domains (not for squatting). But don't worry, we're happy to be part of the Europe !

  • It wasn't fair! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Cronq ( 169424 )
    "Over 1,000 registration agents were only allowed one connection each to EURid's servers in order to prevent problems and ensure fairness."

    Fairness? Please check official registrars list on the eurid web site. There are tons of clons there sharing the same address and/or telephone number just to avoid 1 connection to eurid limit.

    And what eurid did about this? Nothing.
  • Never mind .eu, it's all about 'cock' domains!

    For example - http://www.google.co.ck/ [google.co.ck]
  • First of all .EU also means Europe not only European Union (even if officials say so) and from that perspective its a huge gateway into region that only US can rival.

    Car.eu, shop.eu, RealEstate.eu, realty.eu was gone in first seconds of sunrise preregistration. Many practiced trademarking and other "techniques" to claim even generic domain names (wich was critisized many times). Nice read is "EU Domain Disaster" http://www.eudomaindesaster.org/pageindex.php?lang =EN [eudomaindesaster.org]

    Also Eurid.eu allowed only one c
  • With all those eu registered, it seems that most 3 letter domains have gone.... Just hope they all did not go to cybersquatters
  • Someone seems to have got up early on 7th to register thank.eu [whois.eu].

    And fuck.eu [whois.eu] too.

    Damn.

    Rich.

  • When are they going to be active? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drwho ( 4190 ) on Saturday April 08, 2006 @01:31PM (#15091440) Homepage Journal
    I registered 8 .eu domains on friday. I got my last name, three three-letter domains, and my company name. I used godaddy for them all. They're still "Pending Application" - I wonder how much BS I am going to have to go through before any or all of these are active. I would have thought with all that 'sunrise' stuff that any checking as far as an existing legitimate claim would have been taken care of already, and that the domains would be active within a couple of hours.

    I did use a European address and phone number, but maybe they are checking on a business registered at that location? How much do they really care?

    Is anyone else having this type of trouble? Has anyone else been successful in getting a .eu domains with a less-than-perfect contact address?

  • A Different Opinion (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Zx-man ( 759966 )
    Why do we need geography/politics-based domain names at all? Or, since we are already there and cannot go back, why do we need more of 'em?
    Wouldn't it be more logical to have domains corresponding to specific thematics? (e.g. slashdot.compsci)

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