Contract To Run .eu Domain-name Registry is Up For Grabs as Brussels Tries To Avoid a .Co-style Debacle

The European Union has opened up the .eu internet registry for a new owner, offering a five-year contract to oversee its 3.6 million domain names from October 2022. From a report: The EC's Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technologies announced the rebid last week and its director of future networks, Pearse O'Donohue, has been pushing the issue to the DNS industry -- including personally contacting registry operators to encourage them to apply. It is just the latest in a series of rebids for major internet address spaces in recent years -- several of which have been shrouded in claims of corruption, backroom deals and legal threats, including Colombia's .co, India's .in and Australia's .au domains. In the worst example, Colombia's technology minister was accused of cutting a secret deal with US corporation Afilias ahead of its retender: an accusation that gained credence when the Colombian government's own documents contained unexplained references to a different Afilias contract. The government's documents also showed it has used the wrong registration figures for its own internet space and had skewed the process to favor Afilias. Afilias ended up withdrawing from the bid and the contract was re-awarded to US-based Neustar.

Nominet

[Shemmie]

Obvious fit.

Ethos Capital

[xavdeman]

I think Ethos Capital has some opportunity to run the .eu registry now.

After all, people are asleep again after the .org sale from the Public Interest Registry (PIR) to Ethos which wanted to burden the registry with debts and raise prices without a cap, was stopped by ICANN at the last minute.

https://www.eff.org/press/rele... [eff.org]