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The .EU Landrush Fiasco 259

googleking writes "Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy.com, has blogged about the .EU landrush fiasco. During the landrush phase for names which opened last Friday, established 'big name' registrars got exactly equal chances of registering names as did anyone who chose to bill themselves as a registrar. Bob asserts that hundreds of these new 'registrars' are actually fake fronts for a big name US company." From the article: "Here's how it works: All the accredited registrars line up and each registrar gets to make one request for a .EU domain name. If the name is available, the registrar gets the name for its customer. If the name is not available, the registrar gets nothing. Either way, after making the request, the registrar goes to the back of the line and won't get to make another request, until all the registrars in the line in front of it make their requests. This continues until all requests have been made and the landrush process is over ... The landrush process on the surface seems very fair. But there was something wrong with the process -- very wrong."
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The .EU Landrush Fiasco

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  • Go figure... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Disavian ( 611780 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:07PM (#15099950) Homepage
    If there's a way to cheat, it will be found.
  • by SonicBlue ( 921984 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:08PM (#15099955) Homepage
    I ordered mine a week ago, still haven't gotten it. Bah.
  • That is BS (Score:3, Informative)

    by protich ( 961854 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:09PM (#15099968)
    I was involved in the Landrush. Each registrar was allowed one request per second. NO round-robin/line as mentioned on the sumarry.
    • I was involved in the Landrush. Each registrar was allowed one request per second. NO round-robin/line as mentioned on the sumarry.

      In any case, the author has a point. A round-robin would be a much better case, so your statement only reinforces the idea of american companies cheating.

      Thanks for the info, btw.
    • Re:That is BS (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LunaticTippy ( 872397 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:16PM (#15100011)
      I was involved in the Landrush. Each registrar was allowed one request per second. NO round-robin/line as mentioned on the sumarry.

      You don't understand?! If registrar X had 99 bogus registrars set up they get 100/second. That's more than 1/second.

      • Not only that (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 0xABADC0DA ( 867955 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:41PM (#15100166)
        But the other 99 fake registrars don't need to re-issue requests made by the others (whether granted or not). So they not only can make more requests per second, but those requests are more likely to be still available.
    • Assuming every registrar was trying to register as fast as possible, it's basically functionally the same, just with some randomness in each "round" of registrations.

      I.E., instead of (as the article put it):

      ABCDE ABCDE ABCDE ABCDE ...

      It's more like

      ACDBE EBCDA BADCE CEABD ...
    • I'd argue that... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@@@yahoo...com> on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:56PM (#15100271) Homepage Journal
      Nobody has any business buying more than one or two domain names anyway. Most things would be far better off in a subdomain (movies, for example), where they won't pollute the namespace AND it is explicitly clear as to who does the owning. (This would also eliminate most trademark issues, as then differentiation would be built into the system and deceptive naming would become considerably harder. For this reason, coincidental similarities in names would not be so significant as trademark issues, as it would often be provable that no confusion exists.) It also encourages cybersquatting and typo-squatting.


      The clutter isn't helped by lazy, inefficient admins and registrars who don't maintain records correctly, but that's another issue altogether.


      I can't help but think it would save everyone a lot of grief if all TLD admins, registrars, cybersquatters and ICANN members were just rounded up and sent to Siberia for a couple of decades.

      • Nobody has any business buying more than one or two domain names anyway.

        Dunno about that. With cyber squaters who capitalize on misspelled url's, it seems in a business's interest to try to grab every possible typo version of their business name too...
      • I would agree with your assertion that more subdomains should be used, and that movies are a particularly obvious and egregious example. The switch from moviename.TLD to movienameTHEMOVIE.TLD is an early sign that even those with deep pockets are feeling the crunch. One solution would be moviename.movies.TLD, but of course everyone would object to whoever owns .movies.TLD. Which doesn't affect any studio with the balls to just use moviename.studioname.TLD

        Unfortunately, your (and my) opinion that more sub
    • Re:That is BS (Score:2, Informative)

      by HadenT ( 816717 )
      I'm surprised about this missunderstanding too. There where 3 basic rules:
      Max of one connection _attempt_ per second per IP (time ban if more)
      5 IPs for registrar.
      One concurrent connection at time.

      In perfect world this would be round-robin.
      However when registry system is loaded it starts to loose connections/timeout/etc. How registrar system behaved on such conditions was very important.

      Of course additional accounts changed the picture, and that was discused on EURid mailing lists - however they didn't give
  • sour grapes? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:10PM (#15099972)
    Sounds like Mr. Parsons is just upset he didn't think of making the phony baloney companies like his competitors did.
    He lost out, and they'll definetly get away with it.

    Sometimes scams pay out. Not any more unethical than him selling out to MS for his parked domains.
    • So what? Even if its a case of sour grapes, if that has happened (and I have no reason to believe that it has not happened), then its WRONG.

      We all know how valueable domain names are. I thought somebody would have learnt the lesson watching lawsuits after lawsuits on domain names, and would be extra careful while distributing a new list. But no. We continue to let system fuck itself.
      • "We continue to let system fuck itself."

        No kidding. Especially as we let speculators snap up every domain name that expires, park it, put Google ads on it, and annouce it's for "sale" for a cheap $1,500. All based on the idea that someone once wanted it, so someone will want it in the future.

        Personally, I think that the second one expires it should return to the "public" domain, as meaningful names are a finite resource, and speculators shouldn't be able to hold new businesses ransom.
  • by SpaceCadetTrav ( 641261 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:10PM (#15099978) Homepage
    This is why I live in the .com.
  • Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:13PM (#15099996)
    Did anyone expect anything else? It's kinda funny how naive they were, actually thinking that people would be "good" and play by the "rules".
    • Re:Umm... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) <Satanicpuppy@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:31PM (#15100108) Journal
      It is pretty sad, but, from experience, as soon as you start telling your superiors it won't work "because of human nature", you're already screwed. You have to make something up like, "We can't do it this way because our systems will be swamped by the massive server traffic."

      I'd have set it up so that people had to apply to be able to register, so that they'd be able to weed out the illegit registrars, then I'd make everyone submit their lists, in order of preference, and work my way down.

      Making it spammable is just begging for trouble.
  • slashdot.eu (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fusto99 ( 939313 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:18PM (#15100022)
    So did anyone register slashdot.eu yet?
  • by MooseTick ( 895855 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:19PM (#15100032) Homepage
    If the .xxx ever gets implemented, this will be a good learning experience. You know there will be a massive dash for millions of xxx domains. Whoever gets to some first may become instant millionaires! I know I'll be going for bbqplate.xxx so I can show bbq porno to the masses!
  • by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:19PM (#15100036) Homepage Journal
    So GoDaddy got outsmarted by somebody who gamed the system and now they're whining about it in the CEO's blog. Kwticherbitchin and figure out how to make money, not whine over lost opportunities.
    • So the american citizens were screwed by the greedy corporations, who gamed the system and the even greedier polititians who even wrote their own rules for the system and now they're whining about it all the time on their blogs and everywhere else. Quit bitching and figure out how to make money, not whine over the lost opportunities.
    • Their approach was actually slightly different - they warned the EU that this was going to happen, and then they didn't perform the same gaming because it is unethical. They are betting that the EU will turn around and take the domains away from unethical companies, and then redo the process with the new domains. Their goal now is to force the EU to kick out the unethical companies. They have a longer term outlook than the jerks who tried to cheat the system.
      • I sincerely hope that the EU keeps the registration fees for all domains, but invalidates the registrations performed by those cheating the system (including those registered from the 'legitimate' front of the company). Hopefully that would discourage this kind of behaviour in the future.

    • by graffix_jones ( 444726 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:35PM (#15100128)
      I can't believe that you think that this scam is how business works... any time you can 'game' a system, chances are that proper precautions should have been taken to prevent it, and it should've been illegal.

      The point he's trying to make is that there were several unimplemented methods that would've prevented these bogus registrars from gaming the system, and in fact people running the EURid land rush were notified in advance by several 'legitimate' registrars about the loopholes in the system, and refused to do anything about it (in fact going so far as to completely ignore them).

      Enron also 'gamed' the system, and look how much damage that caused. It's fair to say that this could also have some dire financial consequences against those who were meant to benefit from this process.

      I think his suggestions at the end of TFA have merit, and it would be nice to see something done about this scam... I have a hunch, though, that those in the EURid who allowed the system to be 'gamed' have a financial stake in the gaming process... otherwise these loopholes would've been closed long before the land rush began.
    • by wytcld ( 179112 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:40PM (#15100156) Homepage
      The problem's like this: There's an inverse relationship between corruption and overall, long-term, culture-wide profitability. Yeah, somebody usually manages to get rich even in the most corrupt places. But it's a far smaller proportion that manages it. And even armored cars and bodyguards don't prevent the kidnappings and assasinations that go along with that sort of culture.

      Do you really think Western Europe and North America would be better off if our business cultures fully embraced the models of Nigeria and Russia?
      • Do you really think Western Europe and North America would be better off if our business cultures fully embraced the models of Nigeria and Russia?

        I don't know... There are several people from Nigeria who write every day wanting to share their wealth with me! Some of them are moving to Russia, too, because I get emails from them also!

      • Do you really think Western Europe and North America would be better off if our business cultures fully embraced the models of Nigeria and Russia?

        What makes you think there is a substantial difference?

  • by pla ( 258480 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:20PM (#15100042) Journal
    The landrush process on the surface seems very fair.

    We apparently have radically different ideas of what counts as "fair".


    established 'big name' registrars got exactly equal chances of registering names as did anyone who chose to bill themselves as a registrar

    And what about Joe Jones and Sally Brown? Or more to the point, what about Steve McDonald, Cindy Frye, or Dan Walmart?

    What you call "fair", I decry as massively biased right from the start. The very flaw you intend to point out, rather than making the process less fair, has imparted the only truly "fair" part of the entire dog-n'-pony.


    I'll consider the process fair when humans get first choice, and trying to trademark common single English words carries the corporate death-penalty. Until then, let's not bother quibbling about whether conqueror-X or conqueror-Y managed to rape the most natives.
    • whether conqueror-X or conqueror-Y managed to rape the most natives.

      Hm. I had always wondered how the whole XY chromosome thing came about.
  • by oO_oO_Dave_Oo_Oo ( 967386 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:21PM (#15100043)
    People are just too greedy these days.

    Dave
    ----------------
    www.da.eu
    www.dav.eu
    www.dave.eu
    www.david.eu
  • ... but this is what happens when you regulate a market. Yes it looked like a good idea on the surface. But it failed miserably. Markets NEED to be unregulated, people!
    Well, at least I have no interest in these ridiculous domains.
    • Markets NEED to be unregulated

      It is "unregulated" because there probably are no meaningful consequences to gaming the system. Today's lesson:

      1. It's only wrong if someone gets caught.
      2. If they get caught, then so what? They've got more domain names than the next guy so they win.
      3. The person with most gold rules.

      This highlights one of the consequences of a capitalist society. Now, you may say, "So what! At least I get a chance in a capitalist society because there's more opportunity"

      But competition is
      • But competition is not welcome in a capitalist system. Mature markets evolve to a duopoly/monopoly because the market winners actively supress competition and thereby foster inefficient markets.

        True. Until they reach such dimensions and become so slow and bloated (can a company be "bloated"?) that their competitors can leverage their agility and quickness-to-market (yay marketspeech) to gain more power and little by little displace them. That's why I say an unregulated market is a self-regulating market.
    • by ktappe ( 747125 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:52PM (#15100249)
      this is what happens when you regulate a market.
      No, it's what happens when you claim you've regulated a market so all the law-abiding citizens believe you, but the criminals figure out that you've really done little-to-no regulation at all and create anarchy.

      -Kurt

      • OK, I used a shortcut. I should have said "when you try to regulate a market but everybody knows that people who want it bad enough will get around its regulations and the law-abiding citizens will be the ones to pay, as usual, and good men need no law to tell them what is right and bad men will evade them anyway, and then you only have two choices: either brutally repress those who try to escape restrictions (yay dictatorship) or let everybody free and at least the 'good guys' won't be the only ones left b
    • unregulated markets, huh? you mean like california's energy deregulation? do you mean like repealing the US banking laws put in place after the depression? or maybe you mean like the state of massachusett's attempt to allow businesses to self-police for environmental infractions? and you call yourself a european? would that be an old-europe european or a new-europe european? because frankly you sound like a poster-child for US initiatives to get europe to reduce its social welfare so that american companies
    • What the fuck are you talking about? Did you even _read_ the fucking blog entry?!

      The GoDaddy dude was complaining about rules that allow for a slanted playing field.

      As you well know (or maybe not?), free markets only work if there is a equal playing field for all. The intent was the .EU domain land-rush was supposed to be fair. As the GoDaddy CEO points out in an easy to read manner, the playing field was in fact not fair, and allowed for cheaters to invade the system.
  • In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:26PM (#15100073) Journal
    The TLD hijacking phenomenon that's a decade old profitable business model didn't suddenly stop that day. :-p
  • ... why the existing domain registration process doesn't work.
    Although it seems just as likely that European companies would scam the system as American ones.

    Sooner or later some kind of crisis will happen that will bring about changes to the way that domain names are handled. As noted [yafla.com], three and four letter TLD names are already completely gone, with any reasonable new domain name likely already registered to a legitimate user, or to one of those idiot companies that "hold" names waiting for the highest bi
  • by Cherita Chen ( 936355 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:37PM (#15100140) Homepage
    Has anyone stopped to consider the source? Bob Parsons is notorious for his whining... Anyone who takes a gander at his blog every now and then is privy to the ex-Marine, poor-boy-done-good, megalomaniac either tooting his own horn, or complaining about the business practices of his competitors. Gimme-a-big-fat-Break!
  • by fortinbras47 ( 457756 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:41PM (#15100168)
    I think the basic issue is that price of a domain name is significantly below the market value. As I understand it, there are therefore huge incentives for Mr.DomainCamper to try to grab coke.eu for $10 and try to resell it to Coca Cola for $10 billion. There are also huge incentives for Coca Cola to create their own registrar company and get coke.eu before Mr.DomainCamper does. (btw, I know nothing about coke.eu, I picked it at random.)

    A more efficient way to initially allocate major domain names might be to run an auction.

    Currently, domain names are allocated according to the law of capture. He/she who first claims the domain name and pays a nominal fee has rights to the name. It IS like a land grab where you can acquire the rights to land by just showing up, except it's even worse because to grab land in the American West you generally had to show up and use it.

    My rough idea:
    (1) Auction period will last one month
    (2) At the end of the auction period, domain names that were bid on will go to the highest bidder. (As long as bid is above the minimum bid.) (3) After the auction ends, domain names will be allocated under the old retarded process

    This doesn't solve all domain name problems, but it would get popular domain names to the people/companies that value the name the most.

    • Or a hoard of wealthy investors and Ebay bidsnipers will win 95% of the auctions and buy a chunk of the internet to sell as they see fit.
    • The problem with your appeoach is that it makes the Internet a haven for those with money. Sure, money talks on the net, but much less than in any other medium -- which is why Amnesty, Greenpeace, DemocracyUnderground etc find it most convenient to disseminate their message online.

      If we had a domain name auction system, how'd you like to bet the government of China would snap up rights to amnesty.org?

       
  • wow! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cashman73 ( 855518 )
    Wow! According to whois.eu [whois.eu], there's been 281 applications received for sex.eu ! 71 applications for porn.eu .

    This, of course, should surprise no one.

  • Auction (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ortcutt ( 711694 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:43PM (#15100180)
    Governments auction off radio spectrum. There should be auctions for domain names with the money going into the public coffers, rather than being free money for registrars.
  • by CodeBuster ( 516420 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:45PM (#15100194)
    There seems to be a special place in the liberal heart for the notion of queues and everyone lining up for their "fair share" of whatever is being doled out. It sounds like a good idea in principle, but in practice this type of scheme inevitably falls victim to the realities of human nature. I remember experiencing something like this first hand when the housing authority at my university decided that a limited number of subsidized campus housing units would be doled out based upon a queue system. Of course, they thought that everyone would be nice and orderly, but in practice people camped outside the office for days before the rush began with one person "holding" spaces for twenty of his friends and people buying and selling places in line. They opened the process at midnight and everyone rushed the doors. The campus police were overwhelmed and they were lucky that there wasn't a riot. The point of all this is that the market has demonstrated time and again that queuing and rationing ultimately fail to satisfy anyone as somebody will always get the short end of the stick even though they would have paid more for item x than item y. Instead of trying to enforce some silly queuing system where people can and will find ways to cheat why did they not have an auction instead? Obviously some names like sex.eu are going to be worth hell of a lot more than blog.eu so why not let competing bidders determine exactly how much more? They could have used the proceeds to create a holding company for long term management of the domain and offer whatever names that were left at a fixed price. The conservative Europeans should have known better than to try and create a non-price based system that could not be abused by those crafty American companies and their high priced consultants.
    • Your post is one incredible troll. Insightful! Please.

      If had bothered to come down from your ivory tower and read the blog, you would understand the problem was bogus registrars appearing at the last minute with many being THE SAME COMPANY! They were bogus because they were not real registrars but rather companies squating on a domain name. If the EURID had bothered to do a background check on these companies, they could have prevented the abuse of the system. EURID can still fix the problem but they show
      • They were bogus because they were not real registrars but rather companies squating on a domain name.

        The auction system solves this problem because in the end somebody has to pay from a verified line of credit. Thus, it doesn't matter how many proxies somebody uses because they still have to cough up the money when the hammer falls. The post was made out of frustration because people keep trying the same things that always fail and wonder why they fail. There is no suggestion of ivory tower here...aucti
    • with one person "holding" spaces for twenty of his friends

      Try that in a queue in Northern Ireland and you'll have one person holding twenty teeth in their hands, and rightly so.

      TWW

    • housing authority at you university did not think.

      all students have ID numbers.
      Randomize the list of ID numbers.
      Offer avalible spaces in order they are in the list.
      done. No camping out. No holding spots in line, No selling spots in line. No riot.
      • That is exactly what they did do the following year ;D However, the auction system is still better because it distributes the cost of offering the housing more efficiently. If they auction the housing to students who are willing to pay more than the surplus can be used by the university to lower fees that everyone has to pay. The prices will be bid up until they begin to approximate the off campus apartments and everyone pays proprortionally lower non discretionary fees (i.e. tuition) and ends up paying the
      • Even better, given that it's a university, sort candidates by seniority, then by GPA, or by GPA * total credits. Reward achievers!

        A market rate is economically efficient, but in this case inefficiency might be a good thing. One could ask why a rich senior with a 4.0 GPA should get a subsidised place while a poor freshman with a 2.0 gets doesn't--but I think the answer's pretty obvious: it's a school, and school is about achievement; 4.0 >> 2.0

    • Of course, they thought that everyone would be nice and orderly, but in practice people camped outside the office for days before the rush began with one person "holding" spaces for twenty of his friends and people buying and selling places in line. They opened the process at midnight and everyone rushed the doors.

      Concert tickets used to go like that, too, until most ticket agents got tired of having dirty, smelly people in sleeping bags in front of their store for several days every time a big-name ban

      • where you drop in any time prior to the ticket sale date and get your queue number.

        What's to stop the very same problem as happened with the .eu domains?

        Namely, people showing up multiple times to increase their chance of being most close to the start of the circle?

        Or (in case the ticket agent is checking ids for duplicates) send friends that are uninterested in the concert to stuff the line for them?

  • Unfair? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mattwarden ( 699984 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:49PM (#15100224)
    Unfair?

    * People set up process that my 5-year old niece would have realized wouldn't work.
    * Process doesn't work.

    Seems pretty fair to me.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 10, 2006 @02:50PM (#15100233)
    www.mondi.eu
  • by tigertiger ( 580064 ) on Monday April 10, 2006 @03:02PM (#15100318) Homepage
    The list of registrars [eurid.eu] is actually available only, and it is pretty obvious that the system is being played by some companies - you can usually tell from the address who they are... United Domains of Starnberg, Germany, e.g. is using plant names ( peach-europe Ltd ).

    Since this is a pretty obvious process, I guess it amounts to every registrar choosing how many chances in the landrush it wants to pay for... So what? Vetting individual registrars anyway would have been an messy procedure, the EU registry makes some money from the bogus registrations, and nobody knows if anyone will ever pay any sizable amount for a .eu domain.


  • A quick google search on

    site:.eu

    yields the following:
    27 parked by DomainMonster
    30 go to NetNames
    28 to some unknown with the phrase "dominio parcheggiato" in it. ...

    at 57,700 sites thus far, and an estimate 30 sites per registrars, it works out to about 1900 registrars as he suggests. Thats in line with the ~1200 he mentions in the article.

    So google seems to agree with his article if the results are indicative of the true averages.

    That's a shame. Hey Europe, welcome to the new .com!

    so, welcome to the .com ni
  • /random 100

    Problem solved!
  • Wow, people are surprised by this result?

    All that a queue system did was to create a different value structure. With the new rules in place, it would seem painfully clear to anyone with Econ 101 under their belt (and probably many people without it) that the queue meant that having more "places in line" would give you better value, for not much investment. Duh.

    One of the things that capitalism does well is work *with* basic human nature. It is basic human nature to exploit the world for personal gain. Queue
  • I ordered six domains through netsol and didn't get one. Maybe this explains it.
  • by bVork ( 772426 ) <rpantella+slashdot@gma i l .com> on Monday April 10, 2006 @04:21PM (#15100942)
    I'd really like to know which companies pulled this scam.

    I found one of them. Dotster [dotster.com] is the one behind a whole [eurid.eu] bunch [eurid.eu] of [eurid.eu] Vancouver-based [eurid.eu] registrars [eurid.eu].

    Has anyone else had any luck tracking down the other companies behind this?
  • Anybody that watched the .info fiasco knows this.

    Sunrise period allows big business to overreach their trademark rights.

    Those running the whole scheme are just concerned with making the most amount of money with least costs.

    WIPO.org.uk - skilful.com - WoolwichSucks.org.uk
  • Adding new TLDs is doing nothing except generating revenue for the registrars.

    Pretty much any reasonably sized company who owns a .com address registered the .eu address as well. There were no checks to see if the person registering the domain was actually in Europe, so the .eu landrush was actually many American companies registering companyname.eu so nobody else does.

    The most this will be useful for is to host a website for the european arm of a large multinational corporation (which formerly would be ser
  • by rfc1394 ( 155777 ) <Paul@paul-robinson.us> on Tuesday April 11, 2006 @03:37AM (#15104159) Homepage Journal
    Here were the comments I posted on Bob Parson's blog regarding the so-called 'gaming the system' by someone or some group creating hundreds of registrars :

    Well, there isn't really any way to work around this, as someone could simply have paid $50 each or whatever the cheapest state in the U.S. charges for corporations, and register 1000 corporations, then have each apply separately. After they get whatever domains they want, they sell them - for $1 - to the destined 'master corporation' and discontinue operators by doing a wind-up and dissolve . As legal as church on Sunday and as legally invulnerable. Whether you like it or not, a corporation is a separate entity from its directors or stockholders, and two separate corporations created by the same incorporator are, as a matter of law, three separate entities and entitled to recognition as separate entities. So even if some of the registrars are fake, they could still do the whole thing by registering lots of corporations separately. Raises the price by $50 each registrar but when we are looking at potentially tens or hundreds of thousands of euros per domain name they get, it's chump change.

    Are you upset because you don't like what they are doing or are you upset because you didn't think to do it? You're the owner of a corporation; realize the purpose of a corporation is to provide limited liability for its owner(s) and thus allowing them, in effect, to legally cheat their creditors by denying them access to the owner's personal assets if the business fails. (Your company isn't public so I presume you're not needing to sell stock, which is a different matter). If this wasn't the purpose of a separate entity, one wouldn't need to incorporate, one could simply operate it as a sole proprietor under a fictitious name. But operating in corporate form allows one limited liability and separate existence from the corporate form. And if someone wants to set up a bunch of alleged 'sham' registrars, there really isn't any way to do it unless you only allow registrars to be individuals.

    Short of that, there is always some way someone could - as you call it - 'game the system'.

    If names would have been more valuable that multiple registrants would want the same names, then the answer is for the EU registry to auction them itself, thus draining the profit away from middlemen resellers.

    Maybe it might seem unfair, but your comment sounds more like sour grapes. As long as someone registering in a system does not have to be a human being and can be a legal entity someone can always find a way to make multiple registrations in that system.

    Paul Robinson

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