Re: [ga] Investigation of Possible Contract Breach in .eu Landrush

["kidsearch" <kidsearch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Their reply has been that they are not responsible for anythijng that happened and as long as the lately accredited registrars were legal, then they don't intent to do anything.

Hopefully, your thoughtful letter will get them to look at it once again, but I get the idea they don't really care who got the domain names as long as profit was made.

Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic (Who doesn't want any dot EU domains)
http://wwww.blogs.pn

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Richard Henderson 
  To: EURid 
  Cc: General Assembly of the DNSO 
  Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 4:25 AM
  Subject: [ga] Investigation of Possible Contract Breach in .eu Landrush


  Dear Sir, Madam,

  I am writing to ask what action (if any) Eurid intends to take about Landrush registrations in breach of Eurid's contractual terms?

  I am referring to the use of several hundred registrars who were accredited at the last moment, seemingly set up to gain "extra" submissions to your 'round-robin' queue in the Landrush, but also apparently operated by a 'parent' company in charge of many registrars.

  I flagged up this problem at the ICANN meeting back in 2004 (see the last 3 lines of my article and the main article itself here: http://www.icann.org/meetings/capetown/icann-domainnames-workshop-doc1-01dec04.htm ).

  I also received this assurance from Eurid in July 2005: 

  "The accredited register must forward to EURid only those applications he received after accreditation, and he must do so on a first-come-first-served basis. Auctioning with the domain name is definitely not allowed. Not complying with the regulation and as well as the agreement is a breach of contract."

  "On a similar note, we don't allow reselling."

  "The end consumer should at at any time know who is responsible for what and who would be the accredited registrar. This should be made clear at all times and should be explicitly mentioned in the agreement with the end consumer."

  If any of these shell registrars were set up for Pool or eNom or similar 'parent' company and accredited at the last moment, it is worth noting that the majority of applications would have been received *before* accreditation (because Pool for example was inviting applications months ago).

  I also note that "auctioning is not allowed" and I note that Pool is using an "auction" model. What is Eurid's position on this?

  Finally, I don't see how the end consumer can know in advance which "shell registrar" will be their "registrar" if they apply through a 'parent' registrar. Therefore, Eurid's statement that the end consumer should know who the registrar is seems problematical.

  I am a long-term member of ICANN At Large and regularly participate on worldwide ICANN meetings. I was previously instrumental in bringing the .info launch fiasco to light, resulting in the re-run of the launch in Landrush 2.

  I would appreciate a response and an indication of Eurid's intentions with regard to any breaches of contract over "auctioning" of .eu domains, pre-registration of names prior to accreditation, and use of parent companies for applications which are then 'passed on' to whichever subsidiary registrar managed to pick up the name in the Landrush. After I have received fair clarification from Eurid, I intend to raise these issues with the European Commission.

  I thank you for your assistance in this enquiry.

  Yours,

  Richard Henderson
  www.atlarge.org