EURid Reactivates Ovidio Limited Domains

[jmcc]

It looks like the bozos in EURid have taken the Ovidio Limited syndicate domains off the ON-HOLD status. Those checked are now showing REGISTERED status. These were the domains that EURid was making noises about putting back on the market after taking action against 400 "registrars" for breach of contract. These were the 74000 or so domains that EURid put ON-HOLD in July. Right now EURid's credibility is lower than whale crap on the ocean floor.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Damion]

This is unbelievable :td:

 

[jmcc]

This is unbelievable :td:

Well there are three possibilities:
Eurid chickened out.
Eurid made a mistake and changed the domain status.
Eurid is so utterly incompetent that it is too stupid to realise the damage it has inflicted on .eu ccTLD.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Damion]

Or...they got some money under the table

 

[briman1970]

Freakin' idiots. I've pretty much washed my hands of .EU domains.

 

[jmcc]

It gets even worse. EURid gets to keep the application fees for rejected sunrise applications. So it has made over $7.3 Million from rejecting applications.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Kate]

Which domains are we talking about ? 74000 or specific domains ?

 

[McDot]

Which domains are we talking about ? 74000 or specific domains ?

We are talking about 74.000 Prime domain names that Ovidio grabbed not complying with the regulations set by the European Parlament and Eurid.

These domains are presumably not decided on yet. We asume there has been a legal move on Ovidios side to make these domains available again untill final decision. We also asume they are not allowed to change ownership untill final decision has been taken.

I hope we will hear more about this issue in the next few days.

As a European Citizen, I would like to ask all of you to help correct all this issue. Please visit www.eudomaindesaster.org and sign in to the petition.

Thanks for reading

 

[jmcc]

We are talking about 74.000 Prime domain names that Ovidio grabbed not complying with the regulations set by the European Parlament and Eurid.

I confirm. These are all the domains that Ovidio Limited/Fausto Limited/Gabino Limited registered.

We asume there has been a legal move on Ovidios side to make these domains available again untill final decision. We also asume they are not allowed to change ownership untill final decision has been taken.

Ovido cannot change the status of the domains. This was a move by EURid.

I hope we will hear more about this issue in the next few days.

The court action seems to be underway.

As a European Citizen, I would like to ask all of you to help correct all this issue. Please visit www.eudomaindesaster.org and sign in to the petition.

And contact your MEP and politicians about the .eu fraud.

Regards...jmcc

 

[McDot]

@jmcc

Thanks for your support.

 

[jmcc]

@jmcc

Thanks for your support.

No problems
The reactivation seems to be part of the court action (which is apparently underway) and may be temporary pending the outcome.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Ronald Regging]

The courts probably allowed them to reinstate the names during the trial, because without them, Ovidio is losing money, and if Ovidio has them, EURid isn't really losing any money, so it probably seems like a reasonable action for the courts until the case is decided.

Very shady in general though.

 

[jmcc]

The courts probably allowed them to reinstate the names during the trial, because without them, Ovidio is losing money, and if Ovidio has them, EURid isn't really losing any money, so it probably seems like a reasonable action for the courts until the case is decided.

Very shady in general though.

The judgement has not been made available yet. But it seems to be a temporary measure while the case is still active. (Sort of like an interlocutary injunction in Irish/UK law where a court grants a temporary relief until the case is heard (if I remember correctly).) Still though, it sent shudders down the spine of the domain industry.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Danilla]

I signed www.eudomaindesaster.org, but it sends an incorrect activation link, so I cannot confirm my signature.

 

[McDot]

I just contacted them, and gave them the link to this thread.

I hope they can comment on this problem here.

Thanks for trying.

 

[jmcc]

Apparently a Belgian court forced EURid to reactivate the domains by threatening it with a fine of 25000 Euros per domain per hour. EURid is supposed to be appealing the decision. The Ovidio syndicate is claiming that they are using the domains for a "direct navigation" network. Needless to say, there are lots of extremely pissed off people in Europe right now.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Domagon]

So in a nutshell, .EU is basically destined to be relegated to a "junk" TLD along with .info, .biz, .cc, .ws, etc ...

There may be some occasionally high-profile .EU sales, but overall .EU is likely to be ignored by most people unless policy changes dramatically in .EU...

When too few organizations own too many domains in a TLD and/or most of the domains in a TLD are used for similar thing - ie. parking, porn, and spam, the TLD is basically relegated to a forgotten internet backwater where few venture.

To digress a bit ... 800, 888, 877, 866, 855 (soon) ... which one(s) do most people (speaking of North America) associate business with? ... the prefixes all do the exact same thing, but they are not perceived the same by the public ... similar is true with TLDs ... when in doubt most people will stick with .com and/or their local ccTLD where applicable (ie. .de, .ie, .co.uk, etc.), but I digress.

Ron

 

[jmcc]

So in a nutshell, .EU is basically destined to be relegated to a "junk" TLD along with .info, .biz, .cc, .ws, etc ...

It was doomed the second that the incompetent management of EURid was appointed to run the ccTLD. These guys had the most powerful legislation governing a ccTLD at their disposal and they screwed it up. It would have been trivial for EURid to deactivate the domains and refuse to renew them.

There may be some occasionally high-profile .EU sales, but overall .EU is likely to be ignored by most people unless policy changes dramatically in .EU...

I think that any high profile .eu sale would have to be examined carefully as it might be just one speculator shovelling the domain to another of its front companies.

When too few organizations own too many domains in a TLD and/or most of the domains in a TLD are used for similar thing - ie. parking, porn, and spam, the TLD is basically relegated to a forgotten internet backwater where few venture.

Basically yes. The majority of genuine registrations in .eu are protective. Some new sites are blogs but there seems to be very few pureplay .eu websites. After this kind of bad publicity, businesses would probably think twice about being associated with such a badly run ccTLD.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Ronald Regging]

So in a nutshell, .EU is basically destined to be relegated to a "junk" TLD along with .info, .biz, .cc, .ws, etc ...

You can't seriously say that .info is a "junk" TLD, there has been consistent sales of .info domains and they are becoming more widely used in business.

To digress a bit ... 800, 888, 877, 866, 855 (soon) ... which one(s) do most people (speaking of North America) associate business with? ... the prefixes all do the exact same thing, but they are not perceived the same by the public ...

I've stated this before, but I don't agree with the whole phone exchange scenario... As a consumer, I don't really care what their phone number is as long as it's a toll free number and I know that all of those are toll free exchanges because they're all widely used and it's considered general knowledge. Even if you aren't sure, they'll make sure you do with the words "Toll Free" in their advertising. Companies don't rely on OVT or search engine placement to get phone calls, they rely on advertising that lists a specific number. I'm agreeing with you in the sense that some domain extensions are harder to become valuable due to the fact that they aren't widely known about. And yes, most of the extensions you listed are junk and for that reason. But I hear people giving the phone extension scenario and I just don't think it fits.

.eu is trash now as far as I'm concerned, though I suspect it was before. You got a bunch of people in countries in the EU, but those people don't consider themselves EUians... they consider themselves British, or French, etc... Country loyalties don't die with the conception of an organization that does absolutely nothing for the consumers other than charge a tax and use a common money... So why would any european consumer really have any desire to us .eu instead of their ccTLD...

 

[jkotinis]

As long as eu consists of 25 members and every country has it's own legal system, my understanding is that Ovidio used a Belgian court to take this decision. If i am not wrong Eurid is going to the court in another country (Chech Republic?).

So I think we first have to wait until the case does on. I can't believe it's a final decision, just a prelimenary one. Nobody can't believe that Eurid which is supposed to be backed by EU commision can loose something like this.

And there is no reason because of this to just characterize the whole TLD a junk one. For all the other reasons maybe yes, but not just for this one.