Bob Parsons, CEO of ICANN registrar GoDaddy, first pointed out this practice in his blog last April. This EURID action is in start contrast to the ICANN .info and .biz gTLD rollout fiascos, in which ICANN accredited registrars and faux registrars such as BondiLLC (see my 2002 DNSO-GA post here on that farce), similarily gamed the system with apparent impunity, despite myself and others such as Richard Henderson first pointing this out to Vint Cerf et al over four years ago, with, so far as I know, no ICANN action to date. -g"

In the light of your webpage:http://www.eurid.eu/news/archive/WarningUn accreditedRegistrars [eurid.eu] where you state -

"it has come to our attention that some registrars are 'pooling' the pre-registrations they accept with those of their partner registrars with the intention of auctioning to the highest bidder the first place in the queue for that name. This is in clear breach of the EU regulation and the EURid registrar agreement. Those registrars who participate in such activities risk having their agreement terminated and so will be unable to submit the pre-registrations they have accepted. We strongly recommend anyone who would like to register a .eu to contact an accredited .eu registrar from the growing list on our web site and to beware of schemes which invite them to participate in auctions."

Please could you clarify EURID's position on companies like Pool.com whose established business model is to use a large number of accredited registrars to 'catch' domain names. If they use this method to 'catch' new .eu domains and then pool their 'catches' and offer them to auction to customers, will EURID take any action? I ask this because I have the opportunity to participate in Pool.com's efforts to catch new .eu domains and I need to know that their practice is in conformity with your agreements and that any domains purchased and acquired through this process will be safe and not taken off me.

I am cc'ing this email to the ICANN community and the Registrar and Registry Liaison Managers at ICANN.

I flagged up this impending complication to the .eu processes for the ICANN meeting in Capetown last year: http://www.icann.org/meetings/capetown/icann-domai nnames-workshop-doc1-01dec04.htm [icann.org]

Thank you for any help and response you can send me.

Sincerely,

Richard Henderson

Thank you very much for your email and your commitment to .eu.

Article 5 of the 874/2004 of the European Commission, laying down public policy rules concerning the implementation and functions of the .eu Top Level Domain and the principles governing registration, states:

"A registrar who receives more than one registration request for the same name shall forward those requests to the Registry in the chronological order in which they were received. Only applications received after the date of accreditation shall be forwarded to the Registry".

This means that only accredited registrars may accept pre-registrations, they may only accept pre-registrations after they got accredited and they may only do so in a first-come-first-served order. Not complying with this provision would be a violation of the EC regulation and above all a breach of the registrar agreement.

Equally, we would like to refer to Art. 4 of above mentioned EC regulation, which states that "Only registrars accredited by the Registry shall be permitted to offer registration services for names under the .eu TLD." Registrars offering these services without being accredited are violating the EC regulation. In addition, no reselling of domain names will be allowed. Only the accredited registrar can offer domain names to the public. Reselling domain names to other registrars would constitute a breach of the registrar agreement.

Regarding pool.com, we would like to point out that at the moment, pool.com has not yet filed an application to become an accredited registrar. If they are not accredited, then they are not allowed to offer any services, as laid out in Article 4 of EC regulation 874/2004.

Kind regards,

Your EURid team

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We would like to further clarify your questions:

> First of all, thank you very much for the courtesy of your detailed reply. > If I am correct in my understanding of what you have told me: > 1. Pool.com are not yet accredited and if this remains the case they are not > allowed to offer any services.

Correct.

> 2. The individual registrar has to submit a domain application, and it has > to be on a first-come first-serve basis. If the registrar (who must be > accredited) is successful in acquiring the domain name, he/she may not > re-sell the domain name (for example, to another registrar).

No, you misunderstood something here in so far as it is not the registrar who is acquiring the domain name; it is in fact the end customer/registrant.

Regarding your questions, we want to stress once again that, as laid out in Article 4 and 5 of the EC regulation 874/2004, only accredited registrars may offer registration services for .eu names.

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 explicitely mentioned in the agreement with the end consumer.

It is up to the registrar to decide which modell he would use as long as this modell is in compliance with the EC regulation as well as the agreement.

EURid will continue to monitor and will also post warnings if it should be necessary.

As for your remarks concerning shell registrars and blank rounds, we would like to point out that we follow the policy "one company - one agreement". We will not introduce "blank rounds" as we want to keep it as fair as possible, using the first-come-first-served system, which means that the fastest registrar can only register one domain name before he will automatically be thrown out by the system. Then he would have to get back into the queue as anybody else.

Kind regards,

Your EURid team

Read the rest of this comment...

We really appreciate your effort. At the moment we cannot unfortunately, tell you any more than that the topic is still under discussion with the European Commission. However, feel free to send us your comments and remarks.

Kind regards,

Your EURid team

I am writing to ask what action (if any) Eurid intends to take about Landrush registrations if they are 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-domai nnames-workshop-doc1-01dec04.htm [icann.org]

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 participate on worldwide ICANN meetings. I was previously involved 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

Article 2.4: All applicant registrars are required to indicate the languages they support… The Registrar warrants that it shall make available terms and conditions of service, set out services and prices and provide customer support in the languages indicated… if the registrar fails to provide such services in one or more of the indicated languages… such failure will constitute a material breach of this Agreement.

Article 3: EURID will register any grant the right to use any domain name… if the application is in line with the applicable terms and conditions of the registration agreement.

Article 4: Registration Agreement. The Registrar must guarantee that the Holder has accepted the registration agreement applicable when the application is made.

During the Registration process, the Registrar will always submit (including but not limited to any submission in the WHOIS database) the data of the end user who made the initial request for the registration of the domain name(s) concerned and not its own data.

Article 15.6: The Registrar has the obligation to communicate to EURID the exact reference of the part of its website where referral is made to the Domain Name registration.

REGISTRATION POLICY.

Section 5: A request for Registration of a domain name will only be considered complete when, through a Registrar, the Registrant provides the Registry with at least the following information:

(ii) address and country within the community

The Registry is entitled to reject a request for Domain Name Registration or to revoke a domain name for which the Registrant has provided incomplete or inaccurate information.

.EU DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

“Application” – means a complete, technically correct request for a domain name registration submitted to the Registry, which complies with all the requirements provided for in the Registration Guidelines.

Section 4: The Registrant represents and warrants that:

2. All information provided to the Registry during the domain name registration process is true, complete and accurate.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION REGULATION NO 874/2004 of 28 April 2004

3. Accreditation of registrars should be carried out by the Registry following a procedure that ensures fair and open competition between Registrars. (as in Article 4e of EC REG 733/2002 of 22nd April 2002)

4. Registrars should only accept applications for the registration of domain names filed after their accreditation.

Article 4: The procedure for the accreditation of registrars shall be determined by the Registry… and shall ensure effective and fair conditions of competition.

Article 5: A registrar who receives more than one registration request for the same name shall forward those requests to the Registry in the chronological order in which they were received.

Only applications received after the date of accreditation shall be forwarded to the Registry.

Article 6: The Commission shall be assisted by the Communications Committee established by Article 22 (1) of Directive 2002/21/EC