I'm from Romania, and my firstname.ro was available late last year, but someone else bought it...I don't have a problem with that...I was willing to pay 50 euros, since it's a common name, I assume it went for a lot more.

I don't understand why it would be 500 euros/year. Once you bought it, it's yours, you can renew it for 9/year.

I got firstname.be a while back, and I did pay more for it than 50 euros. Guess it depends on how much you want it -- I'd been waiting nearly 16 years until the domain finally expired. Didn't really feel like waiting another 16 years... :)

I've had steve.org.uk for a good few years. Then I moved to Finland, and saw that steve.fi was due to expire in about four months.

Believe me I hammered their registrar the day the domain expired, looking to purchase it. Of course it then went into a redemption-state. But eventually, it became mine. Thankfully the previous-owner was willing to let it go.

All this and not even a drop of css!

Hey, it's in development !

yeah, you can switch resellers, so the info in the article is not corect.

Corect is not correct.

(Sorry.)