False note from the EURid or how America has taken domain names in the USA.

According with the norms of the EURid, every company could and can become Registrar   (the Registry office accredited for the commercializing of this extension) from the moment when it exists legally and it pays the amount of 10.00 euros. This amount is an advanced payment over the one that the company would have to spend to deposit names on its own or in its clients’ name. Besides, each Registrar   would have the right over an offer channel in each time of opening registry (as the sunrise or the public opening on April,7). A channel means the right to introduce a registry application each second from the exact hour when each one of the phases opens, and it is announced by the registry.

In theory, it seems it is regulated as a Belgium watch and it is ready to work in the fairest way it be possible. In any case, this is the declared will of the non governmental organization.

The Registry forgot, voluntary or involuntary, that more interested people would be the American registrars and the most speculating would be the European ones and these last ones wouldn’t doubt about the creation of fictitious societies to make a crowd of channels. These ones would give them a biggest opportunity to deposit domain names in the first seconds of the openings. Besides, they know the creation of a society without a true activity only cost some pounds, dollars or euros, without the obligation of a certain accounting management, without expenses or charges, and the EURid didn’t do any checking over these declarations, these societies flowered like mushrooms, and they weren’t, for sure, no more than "clones" without the content of working registrars. This opportunity has allowed to some of them, after the investment of some million dollars, to have the benefit of the using of a biggest quantity of channels that allow them to submit in a second, applications as well as accreditations. The objective is, principally, to take possession of the more generic names in order to re-sell them with important benefits or to profit by the traffic produced by its generic character. This pertaining dullness is added to another one that allowed people with no rights over a name to get the first place in the sunrise 1, with a mark deposit to INPI, some days after the extension opening, matter that we mentioned in our last article.

Suddenly, the ciphers announced by the EURid when it classifies the names asked for a country don’t have any reality at all. The American, German or British registrars (by acquisition) registered names under a false identity and a false European address in order to carry over these rules.

According with our opinion, the privation and breaking of the equality of opportunities that put on the true European inhabitants would have been able to avoid by a simple detail, as we had said to the registry from the last year.

It would be enough that they demand:

 It be the previous condition of management on a minimum number of domain names. In fact, you would have had the security that the applicants are truly active Registrars and there be a sufficient number. The fictitious societies that didn’t have any domiain name in charge, the true registrars, would have had a channel and therefore, the opportunities would have been the same for each one of them.

 It be to bind to a minimum number years of existence in this job and the main rent of the society came from this exercise. In this case also, the clones wouldn’t have had any opportunity of being accredited.

 It be the candidate office of registry were accredited by the ICANN. The ICANN draconian norms of accreditation together with one of the two conditions above could have avoided radically these abuses.

For that, only the experienced registrars have a perfect control over the technical difficulty in the method of communication between the Registrar   and the Registry, that is called the EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol). Therefore, the ones which would register in the list of accredited registrars, at once will be on working with a potential number of clients and years of existence.

But without taking into account the total absence of checking on these clones societies, any of them established these restrictions, and this allowed a deviation where private people or European companies were the first who paid the expenses. EURid couldn’t ignore these practices knowing that more than 350 American registrars were accredited in the last hours before the opening with identical data.

The damaged colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic also told us about their intervention in the EURid in order to put them on guard against these abuses. It is necessary we wait for innumerous lawsuits in the next months. An independent court of justice will judge in the best way the real rights or the priority of the marks on their exact value. While it is produced the .eu opening after innumerous other extensions which knew similar situations, an adjustment and the agreement about the previous experiences would have been avoid such as catastrophe.

JCV & SB