Registering top-level domain names can be a little confusing. There are country-code domain names (TLDs), like .de for Germany and .jp for Japan, and then there are the generic TLDs, like .com and .net. But be warned that there are NO TLDs like .scot or .brit.
Someone was making a nice living off of unsuspecting people. You can read about it here.
You should also be careful about multilingual domain names. These too, though they may indeed work, are also not official.