.EU Domains Live… with a Hitch

April 10th, 2006 by Chris

Bob Parson’s blog has a nice post about problems with the .EU domain name landrush.

Not since .com has there been a potentially more lucrative TLD released. When I heard about it visions of buying some lucrative domain like sex.eu popped into my head. However I figured that I wasn’t European and it just wasn’t right… plus there would only be a minute chance of me getting something good anyways.

However, it looks like some companies gamed the system by setting up fake registrars and buying domains for themselves. This was really underhanded and I wish I knew what company it was so I could not do business with them.

For instance, I recently figured out (as far as I can tell anyways) that Dotster.com was taking names searched for on their site and registering them on behalf of speculators (or sending the good ones to speculators… not exactly sure how it worked). So you could search for a site in the morning, and later in the day some company in South Africa has registered it already. Thats just not right, like employees of an affiliate network using inside data to help them publish their own sites on weekends (a recent scandal at CJ).

4 Responses to “.EU Domains Live… with a Hitch”

  1. Sinnfrei  Says:

    Do you have a link to some info about that CJ scandal? Seems like I missed that one…
    Thanks!

  2. Chromate  Says:

    That happened at CJ? Wow. I often wondered about this with the amount of detailed information some affiliate networks ask for. I’ve even heard of affiliate program managers asking for PPC keyword lists from their affiliates.

    It would certainly be interesting to work for one of these companies to get an insider view on the top performing sites over a whole range of different industries. Perk of the job? :)

  3. Shawn Kerr  Says:

    If you can grab the latest copy of Revenue magazine, you can get the scoop on the CJ data thing. Or search for “Triple Jangro”. It’s all centered around network employees also moonlighting as affiliates themselves, with the possibility of using the information they’ve learned at the networks from top affiliates’ strategies.

    I’ve never had any issues with Doster. I search many domains often, and some fairly lucrative ones that amazingly weren’t registered have turned up. They’re still not registered to this day (they potentially would be if someone knew about them).

  4. » .EU .conned and other shady registrar practices - Web Publishing Blog  Says:

    [...] Without a doubt, I believe that the lack of government regulation online has been very important to its massive growth and the ease of publishing information. Unfortunately, there are some downsides. Chris over at WebSitePublisher.net made a post about some of the shenanigans that have occured over the .EU domain. [...]

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