.eu domain registrar takes action against fake registrars; 74,000 domains suspended.

I didn't cover the story when it happened back in April, but maybe I should have. In short, when the .eu top-level domain went live, they came up with a round-robin registration system to try to manage the inevitable land rush. The idea was that authorized registrars would take reservations for domain names from their customers, and then take turns registering them.

But what really happened was that just three companies — Ovidio Ltd, Fausto Ltd and Gabino Ltd — created hundreds of fake registration companies in order to jump the queue and squat on over 74,000 domain names. The registrar GoDaddy blew the whistle on the scam even as it was happening. You can catch up on the details of the story in Register article EU domain registry hijacked, claims GoDaddy.

Luckily, Europe doesn't consider this kind of theft to be "business as usual" and has taken action. All of the 74,000 domains registered by the 400 fake registrars have been placed on hold, and should become available again for legitimate customers around the end of the year.

For the full story, see 74,000 .eu domains suspended.