In a somewhat specious statement on 22nd July, the .EU domain registry (EurID) said that any domain name reseller would be “completely excluded” from selling .EU names.

Now resellers represent very substantial sales for many domain name registrars. Thousands of web hosting companies act as resellers, seamlessly selling domain registrations and email services as part of their main web hosting plans.

So is EurID likely to lose alot of business from their decision? Are they shooting themselves in the foot?

I don’t think so, and I’ll explain why…

EurID objects to ‘resellers’ because “… regulation 874/2004 of the European Commission laying down the public policy rules concerning the .eu Top Level Domain states clearly that only registrars accredited by the Registry (EURid) shall be permitted to offer registration services for .eu domain names …”

Now a ‘reseller’ is obviously someone who sells a product or service purchased from a third party, in this case the domain name registrar.

But the thing is that many so-called resellers are acting as affiliates, i.e. as sales agents.

Sales agents don’t contravene European Commission rules because they simply introduce the customer to the accredited .EU domain registrar, where the domain is actually registered.

An example is CheapToRegister.com which has been offering European country domains, including .EU pre-registrations, for several months on behalf of the EuroDNS accredited .EU registrar.