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Over 1 Million .eu Domains and Counting

Posted by ryuzaki0 on 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."

33 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by Poromenos1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    How do you pronounce "eu"? If it's how I think it is, "fuck.eu" would be a very nice domain to have.

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    1. Re:Hmm by joe+155 · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you like that you'll love being able to register ".co.ck"... I always found that one funny, not exactly shure which country it is though

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    2. Re:Hmm by richardablitt · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Cook islands, somewhere between Australia and South America.

  2. big in GB... by joe+155 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?...

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    1. Re:big in GB... by taskforce · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.

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    2. Re:big in GB... by ickoonite · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Two words: island mentality. The Japanese have a similar view of the Asian mainland.

      I am no geographer, but one should not underestimate the fundamental importance it has in shaping the human experience.

      iqu :|

    3. Re:big in GB... by Wellington+Grey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes I am an American (though I moved to London three years ago). It still seems odd to me to hear my English co-workers talking about what is going on in Europe. To me it would be like hearing New Yorkers talk about taking a trip to America.

      -Grey

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    4. Re:big in GB... by Haeleth · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

    5. Re:big in GB... by Haeleth · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It still seems odd to me to hear my English co-workers talking about what is going on in Europe. To me it would be like hearing New Yorkers talk about taking a trip to America.

      But I thought New Yorkers think New York is America? :P

      A better example would be Hawaiians. Do they see a difference between the part of the US that's in North America and the part of the US that's in Hawaii, or is it all just "America" to them?

    6. Re:big in GB... by bogjobber · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well that's slightly different. Hawaii had absolutely no cultural or geographic link to the Americas before about 150 years ago. Hawaii is also much further away from the US than Great Britain is from Europe. You can't exactly ride the train from Honolulu to LA. For example, the distance from Honolulu to San Diego (the closest large city from Hawaii) is about the same as the distance from London to Jerusalem.

  3. Question: by Wellington+Grey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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

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    1. Re:Question: by floorpirate · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

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  4. Is this a case of... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    ... get your towel off my domain name?

    1. Re:Is this a case of... by amliebsch · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm not surprised at all. Ther Germans have a long history of successful landrushing.

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  5. Domain Squatting by cheetah_spottycat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  6. EU is such a silly idea... by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why not... .UN! All members in the United Nations can register one! :-p
    Redundancy and more redundancy for the domain registrars to make money...

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    1. Re:EU is such a silly idea... by wizzdude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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  7. uk second biggest domain after .com? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    According to Nominet http://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.

  8. embiggen.eu is still available by psykax · · Score: 3, Funny

    for legitimate pharmaceutical suppliers, of course

  9. Re:.eu is useless, it's a domain DMZ by mikeplokta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can't think of any grocery stores in more than two EU countries, you're not thinking very hard. Try Aldi and Lidl, who both operate in numerous EU countries. In other sectors, there are chains like IKEA.

  10. Don't mention the landrush by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    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.

  11. In Soviet Russia... by borgdows · · Score: 4, Funny

    insovietrussiadomainsregister.EU !!

  12. some .eus :) by tomasvilda · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.google.lt/search?q=site:.eu -- http://stilius.net/

  13. Re:Relatively few from France? by Anne+Honime · · Score: 2, Informative
    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 probably stick with a general TLD unless the almighty USoA start pissing us by tightening the conditions of registration.

  14. Re:.eu is useless, it's a domain DMZ by googleking · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually flickr.eu shows as application pending to Yahoo on whois.eu, but I agree with you about feedburner.

    I tried to register three .eu domains which are fairly meaningless to all but myself; I had the registrations in in advance waiting for the landrush to open but it seems like other people got them. In two cases the lucky winners are people with names like "thisdomainforsale.com" and in the third, whois.eu gives an address in China - I've no idea how that can have happened.

    So in my experience, .eu has just become yet another cybersquatter/Sedo hell, which is a shame; I had hoped that the higher cost of .eu domains (the cheapest I've seen is 5 GBP per year but the average registration cost seems to be 15-20 EUR) would prevent most of the speculator scum.

  15. It wasn't fair! by Cronq · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "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.

  16. Re:Other info that would have been nice... by TCM · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Indeed. I know people who made the mistake of going with the big players, only to find out that their wanted names had been taken as soon as 6 minutes after the start of Landrush.

    Even hours later, 1&1 hadn't registered names that were still free. 18 and a half hours(!) later those names were finally registered.

    Smaller registrars were said to have completed their whole(!) procedure after 17 minutes of the start.

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  17. Re:.eu is useless, it's a domain DMZ by dajak · · Score: 2, Informative

    Spar, Ahold, Carrefour, Delhaize. In most countries just 2 or 3 multinational chains dominate the market. Most multinational European chains operate under different names in different member countries, though. Ahold and Delhaize also operate in the US under 10 different names.

  18. When are they going to be active? by drwho · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:When are they going to be active? by drwho · · Score: 2

      I feel funny replying to my own mesage, but -- does anyone know of a free (or dirt cheap) VoIP service with voicemail that can provide me a phone number in Leipzig, Germany (country code 49, city code 341)? How about a mail drop service?

  19. Re:.EU is more important then you might think by LeftOfCentre · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, .eu in this case does mean European Union and nothing else. Only businesses, organizations and residents of the union can register a domain under the new TLD.

  20. A Different Opinion by Zx-man · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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)

  21. Re:linux.eu by Tacvek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The address given belongs to "Gille, Hrabal, Struck, Neidlein, Prop & Roos".

    Gille, Hrabal, Struck, Neidlein, Prop & Roos is a German patent/trademark law firm. I would assume that if the registration is valid, the firm is acting on Linus's behalf.

    Also note that they registered in their own name also. A bit strange.
    If they are acting on behalf of Linus, they will most likely (or hopefully, anyway) be granted the domain.

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