This severely limited the number of Registrars that took part directly, as they would have had to allocate tech staff to make the required changes. DENIC partners like Opensrs Enom and Godaddy didn’t even bother to try to take part.

This left it wide open for a registrar to do backroom deals for connection pooling.

Why didn’t they just use the normal channel, throttle it to 4 per registrar per minute and close the system down to normal registrations for the 30 or so minutes it took to allocate the new names?

Crazy.

To start with we have to decide who these domains really belong to, which is their purpose. Certainly it is not to be grabbed by one company that is just going to hold on to them to sell them. Secondly the practice of auctioning these domains by sedo and some other companies which tried to sell these domains, that normally cost around 4 to 8 euro a year to maintain, for a much higher price is more than greedy.

I think the government has to step in and check the system how domains get distributed by the DENIC. In the first place it is very suspicious that the DENIC is not affiliated to the government in any way and does not disclose its business practice. They even signed a “code of ethics” which does not allow members to disclose any information about their business.

As they make millions of Euro each year by suppyling a rather simple task, linking the domain names to the actual servers, this shows they have something to hide. The main thing is they get money for something that really does not belong to them. The .de domains should be the property of the German State and not some company. In some sort this would be the same then having the power to decide the naming of streets and cities in Germany without having to discuss this with anyone else and taking money for it.

The DENIC should get exactly as much money as they need to pay their servers and people who work for them but nothing more and it should be at least observed by the government and excess profits from the domain sales should also be directed to the goverment.

I also think there will be alot of trademark holders going after them in the coming months.

You’re certainly right about the last word not having been spoken. In many cases there will be attempts from trademark holders to gain ownership of domains they didn’t get in the registration process, there will be resales on the secondary market and there will be registrars and investors looking into legal actions against DENIC.

However, the pooling of registration rights seems unrightful to me. It makes the 4 registration per minute rule meaningless and leads to an completely intransparent and unfair registration process. Denic should have made every effort to let every particpant get something from the pie.
Hence, I wouldn’t be surprised if the last word hasn’t been spoken yet.