April 22, 2003 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- If recent events are any indication, it promises to be a frustrating year for domain buyers throughout Europe.
Customers across the continent have recently been faced with shady service, archaic laws, controversies and even uncertainty surrounding the future of their domains.
Business and consumers throughout the United Kingdom have been hit particularly hard this year. First, many were duped in January and February by several organizations operating scams that tried to convince domain owners to switch registrars. Some companies went as far as falsely claiming to be acting on behalf of major domain registrars, using scare tactics and sending "renewal invoices" for services not actually related to domains they had purchased.
Many UK business and consumers were then hurt further in February when it was announced that the uk.co domain, which many UK businesses had been encouraged to register as an alternative to the .co.uk domain, had suddenly been removed from availability. The University of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia, which is responsible for the operation of the .co domain, said that Net Registrar, the registrar for the .uk.co domains, had failed to agree to the terms of a proposed arrangement. Net Registrar was therefore "no longer entitled to operate uk.co sub-domains," according to a posting on the uk.co Web site.
Not all of the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Europe's domain industry have been centered on deceptive business practices, however. In Slovakia, a battle for control of the country's .sk extension is reportedly waging between the Slovak Association of Internet Providers and the domain's current registry. According to reports, the SAIP petitioned ICANN, the governing body of domain name operations, to hand over control, arguing that putting the administration of the domain in the current registry's hands could lead to an unfair monopoly.
A potentially frustrating problem now faces domain owners in Yugoslavia, where the country recently changed its official name to Serbia and Montenegro in early February.
With the name change, the future of the country's .yu extension is up in the air, as are the futures of the sites using that extension. This problem has emerged despite the fact that officials spent more than a year planning the country's official name change.
Not all registrars and operators in Europe are facing controversy or uncertainty, however - in fact, for some, the future looks bright. In Greece, domain administrators appear to have only recently realized the business potential of the Internet, finally loosening the strings on some archaic legislation that prevented one person from owning more than one domain ending in the .gr extension. People that are not of Greek nationality will also now be able to purchase names.
Given the recent problems throughout Europe and the increasing number of nations liberalizing their domain regulations, it would be logical to assume that the Pan-European .eu extension that was approved in 2002 would solve many of the problems buyers now face, while providing a European footprint for businesses online at the same time. However, the new European extension has not been without controversies of its own. For one, several firms began encouraging users to "pre-register" .eu domains before an operator had even been selected, prompting the EU to warn buyers that pre-registering for .eu domains does not guarantee anything. "Given the risks for confusion 'pre-registration' services are not recommended by the Commission," the EU said on its site. "In any case consumers and companies are encouraged to check exactly what is and what is not being offered."
The issue of choosing an operator turned out be controversial as well: many people were irked when the EU's reported choice to operate the extension was leaked to the media before it was announced (EURID, a non-profit consortium of organizations in Italy, Belgium and Sweden, was reportedly chosen).
Given some of the problems that buyers and sellers alike have had over the past few months in Europe, careful consideration when choosing companies to do business with is required. A wrong choice could not only lead to deceit, but could lead to downtime as well.
