EURid, the Belgium-based registry for .eu domain names, suspended 10,000 domain names which were registered to a Chinese woman whom it accuses of cybersquatting. In response, the woman has filed a lawsuit against EURid in the Court of First Instance in Brussels, Belgium.
According to the Register article:
EURid, the Belgium-based registry for .eu domain names, has blocked the names and has the right to strip the woman, Zheng Qingyin, of the names. EURid legal manager, Herman Sobrie, told OUT-LAW, though, that the organisation wanted to have a court strip Qingyin of the addresses. He said that case would take about a year.
Also, according to Sobrie, the result of the case brought by Zheng Qingyin should be known in about a month.
Although EURid received many complaints regarding the domain names registered by the Chinese woman, EURid does not have the authority to bring legal action against alleged cybersquatters. Only those claiming the domain name can bring legal action against a domain name owner.
Therefore, EURid has brought action against the Chinese woman based on her place of residence. It seems that the .eu domain name extension can only be registered by those based in the European Union.
Sobrie goes onto state that:
"We started asking for more information about her domicile. She said she was domiciled in London. At first we took that for granted, but we had indications that that was probably not true. We have serious doubts about the eligibility of that lady and at a certain point we thought we had enough reason to say that she wasn't eligible. Under the circumstances we preferred to sue in a Belgian court and have the names revoked by the court rather than do it ourselves and be sued.
When we screen our data bank we see that some people have an amazing amount of names. Nobody needs 10,000 names. We had a lot of complaints from people complaining to us that they were contacted or they contacted the holder, who said 'make an offer and we'll sell it'. We know the prices were between €500 and €1500."
Source [The Register]
