Well there has been much discussion since the landrush period for the new .eu TLD began. By all accounts, it appears as though there have been some underhand practices used to register a large number of domains. Even though EURid, the body overseeing registrations, were made aware of loopholes in the system, it appears as though they were and are still unwilling to take action.

The net result of this is that many valuable .eu domains lie in the hands of unscrupulous people who are more likely than not to be Americans. These domains are now being auctioned for ridculous prices. The domain I was after, rooke.eu, doesn’t appear to have fallen victim to this practice although we have yet to see anything published there other than a holding page.

After talks with GoDaddy’s support team, it appears that once they acknowledge that the domain has been registered by another party, they will refund the registration charge I paid. A simple check on the EURid whois database can confirm that! All in all, it’s been a frustrating experience.