Category: Domain Names

I’ve got a .eu domain, more as a novelty than anything else as it is used simply as a redirect to kenmc.com and the name itself (kenmc.eu) certainly isn’t promoted in any circles. Tens of thousands of people applied over the Sunrise period for .eu registration a year ago or so. A lot of people got the domains they were looking for. Of course, hundreds of domain registrars were created and used during the landrush once the gates opened for public registration and many people lost out on domains and the whole registrations process turned into one big farce.

Without any decent controls in place from the outset, what was deemed a good TLD and a good idea at the time for European businesses and individuals has become a domain joke.

In an effort to correct or prevent further disputes and also guide the public on choosing a .eu registrar, the .EU Code Of Conduct has been launched.

In broad terms, the .eu registrar Code of Conduct describes what principles subscribing registrars are to adhere to when registering domain names on behalf of their customers. It also details the level of service quality they are to provide, the data privacy policies they are to adhere to and the conditions surrounding the use of the official Code of Conduct Affiliate logo.

Home come this wasn’t laid out at the very start? EURID has already lowered the base cost of registering a .eu domain, supposed to be 5 Euro but I’ve yet to see a registrar bending to this price.

The document in full, the .EU Code of Conduct can be downloaded here (.pdf) or view the website.

Three sites of mine including Devious Theatre and World Cup Access have been out of action for almost three days while browsing with an Eircom conntion. Anyone with a Chorus connection, or Eircom connection outside of Kilkenny want to try those sites?

Or anyone know how long it takes an Eircom DNS server to refresh?

Anyone got a big stick I could be the nameservers with?

Update: Works grand on an Esat connection…. just looking like an Eircom issue.

Resolution: Found the details for Eircom’s old DNS servers and used those. So changing from the current 213* variety to 159.134.237.6 (primary) and 159.134.248.17 (secondary) does the trick. No joy in trying to force the nameservers to update though! Anyone else, bar me, had a similar problem in the last two days?

So 74,000 domain names (.eu domains) were effectively registered by 3 companies who had set up 400 registrars “as a front” to snap up .eu domain names as soon as they hit the market at landrush stage.

Pavlos has some details with the full story via BBC.

Keith’s domain auction has hit €305 and there’s still a good 5 days left on the auction. Think that should pay for his dinner when attending the IT@Cork Web 2.0 (ooooooh did I say that?) conference…. 🙂

How do the Irish stand out?

Seemingly kenmc.com will fetch me $14,702 if I’m lucky (any other Ken Mc’s interested in blowing 14k on a domain, email me)…. KilkennyMusic.com should fetch me €16,854….. Damien Mulley is looking at over $48,000 for his domain (happy days…)

Fancy pricing your own, with yet another domain appraisal service – though this time its a freebie…. Check out LeapFish.

April 7th I attempted to register a discretionary (non-trademarked) .eu domain, was told by a particular US registrar that I was successful only to find out yesterday that the domain had outstanding pre-registration attempts with other registrars and eventually slipped to one of them and not me.

Not happy to have forked out good money for a bunch of domains I would have used (legitimately I might add) I promptly emailed their customer support to explain my case. Low and behold Paypal informs that my credit card has been refunded for each domain I brought a case for… Makes my Wednesday morning that much better!

As of this morning there have been over 1.3 million .eu domains registered – and fair play to the Germans, they’ve managed to register half of them alone!

Registering my own name went though in a few hours but three discretionary names I’ve attempted to register (and have paid for) are still pending since Friday. The mind wonders…

Update 1 : For your information, as of time of posting, Irish users have registered a total of 17,283 .eu domain names. (Via Eurid)

Update 2 : Kenmc.eu is now live… (and pointing right back here)

So the .eu domains were unleashed yesterday and I’ve already started shopping. Nice to have a chance at taking a domain to play with that was previously unavailable. Registration process is quite simple and my first domain, kenmc.eu (which will simply redirect to here) was approved within a few hours, being a natural resident of the EU. Outside of that you’ve either got to be a business or have your trading offices in the EU.

Sean McNamara came up with a nice swoop and picked himself up Sean.eu… go figure. No doubt the registrars will be having a fun time with the new wave of domains being rolled out across the web.

Well, its a dark day for Jeeves – he’s getting the sack. The man (can you call him that) has graced the screens and domain of AskJeeves.com for around a decade, he calls the shots over at BlogLines (they were acquired for an undisclosed price last Autumn) an he’s become an absolute icon and catch phrase among internet users.

And now, his P45 is in the post. Anyone in need of a famous internet valet for their homepage?

Update : After writing this post, I came across Save Jeeves via AllEver, as written by a “fan and former employee” speaking in “defense of The Butler”.

Sex.com, in all its covert glory has finally sold. The price tag – US$14,000,000.

I was writing a guide on domain naming strategies and purchasing when up popped this article. This domain (sex.com) has been lashed around, hijacked, cybersquatted, been through the courts and, finally, sold with the news breaking this morning. There was me thinking that there was no real money left in domain name sales! Read the full story here…

Come on… you read it like “are you ready”…..

Registration for “.eu” names begins on Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. GMT.

For the first two months, only certain rights holders such as registered trademark owners, public bodies and companies can register. On Feb. 2, “.eu” opens up to family names. General registration begins April 7 on a first-come, first-served basis.

Just a few interesting little bits. I’ve applied for two .eu domains already and should find out the success of the matter next week. Hopefully anyway.

Prices are a little expensive to start with, as with any new TLD, but should calm down to the €15-€20 mark for general registration. Event Ireland will also be offering .EU domain registration through the Event Ireland storefront when the domains go live.

Reading through some posts over at TechCrunch this morning and came across this addition – AjaxWhois.

It seems there are more Ajax tools popping up all over the place, but I gotta say, I like this one. I’m a regular ‘whois’ user at whois.org, and I’m pretty impressed with the Ajax offering, in particular with speed of information retrieval.

You simply enter your domain name (no need to click any buttons) and it searches on the fly, returning your results if the domain is available or not. If it is taken, you are given the option to perform a ‘whois’ with instant results, or alternatively backorder the domain for when it becomes available.

I gotta say… thats one useful tool to have!