Zheng Qingying, a Chinese woman, was recently sued by Eurid, an institution in charge of domain name registration in Europe, because she registered over 10,000 domain names with the suffix of ".eu." Sina.com.cn reported it on September 11.

According to relevant rules and regulations, any individual or organization in any EU country may register an unlimited number of domain names with the ".eu" suffix.

However, the huge number of names registered by Zheng aroused suspicion from Eurid, because no company is large enough to require that many names. All the domain names registered by Zheng are now frozen and she is presently incapable of selling or transferring any of them.

Herman Sobrie, a legal advisor for Eurid, revealed recently that they had received a great number of customer notices, complaining their names were registered by others without any due notice. According to an EU regulation, any individual or enterprise, when capable of testifying the priority of the ownership of a specific domain name, enjoys the right of suing anyone encroaching upon his or her legal interests.

Eurid also doubts Zheng is not living in London as she claimed in her registration sheet.

In response to these actions, Zheng filed a counter suit, requiring Eurid to release all her domain names. The lawsuit filed by Zheng is to be heard next week, while the one filed by Eurid is expected at least one year later.

The domain suffix of ".eu" was put into use in December 2005. There are currently more than 2.5 million websites using this suffix.

(China.org.cn by Chen Xia, September 12, 2007)