After the rush to purchase .eu domain names, the sad truth is that only a fraction of registered domains using the new top-level domain are actually developed. The vast majority seem to have been registered by savvy domain speculators hoping to cash in on the names by selling them on, or parking them and raking in pay-per-click revenue.

John McCormac, a writer for Whoisireland Review, is recognized in some circles as a European Domain Name expert. He writes, "The figure for active web development in .eu is now close to 16%... [T]he active web figure now stands at 286222 websites out of the initial 1.436M websites. That’s 19.94% of the websites and 16.16% of the total resolving .eu domains. The .eu ccTLD is a disaster zone compared to real ccTLDs. In comparison, the .ie figure is around 57% of websites actively developed - a far higher figure."

If the .eu top-level domain continues to be treated in this way, the irony is that the domains so gleefully acquired by speculators will be as good as worthless, because the .eu domain will be virtually ignored by internet users for providing very little valuable content. McCormac continues, "There has to be a critical mass of natural web development in an extension to make the extension viable for both business and speculation. It is that natural web development that makes an extension valuable." He argues that over 15% of .eu domain names are "PPC monetised", not including those using Google Adsense.

Many of the .eu Domain Names registered by speculators are the names of existing small European businesses and websites – and it's sites like these which should be the driving force behind a successful country-code top-level domain. The problem is that many of these small businesses can't afford to buy them back, so the TLD is stagnating. Commentators accuse EURid of failing to take action, even when domains have been registered with details which are clearly false or incomplete. The impression given is that EURid doesn't care, so long as it can tell its political masters that the TLD is a great success, with millions of domains registered.