Dawn breaks for European domain

By Alun Williams

Posted on 2 Dec 2005 at 12:43

The .eu top level domain is about to open for business. Specifically, a so-called Sunrise Period begins next week that enables trademark holders and others with certain 'prior rights', to register a .eu Web address.

The Sunrise Period starts 7 December, with the Land Rush Period, open to everyone, commencing 7 April 2006.

EURid, which is based in Belgium, is the not-for-profit organisation that has been selected by the European Commission to operate the new .eu top level domain.

Who is entitled to register a .eu domain name? Companies that have their registered office within the European Community, organisations that have been established within the European Community, and individuals who are resident within the European Community.

How popular, or effective, the new domain will be remains to be seen. As you would expect, the EU welcomes the new addition to Web domain demarcation. The BBC quotes the Information society and media commissioner Viviane Reding as expecting hundreds of thousands of bodies to apply in the first few days. The .eu domain will 'become as important for European business as .com', she boldly states.

However, Sir Tim Berners-Lee - no less than the inventor of the Web - is among the outspoken critics of proliferating top-level domain names.

Speaking at the World Wide Web Conference in New York back in May 2004, he argued that adding additional domain names didn't have the effect of widening their scope but merely devalued the existing domains. 'When you print money, you devalue the money you have already printed,' he told the conference.

At the time he argued that other expansions, such as .info and .biz, have only served to boost the profits of the registries as speculators tried to cash in on potentially lucrative domain names and major companies sought to protect their brands by buying up new versions of their brand names alongside the .com, .net and .org they might already own.

Back in December 2002, ICANN also added .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro to the original .com, .net, .org and country domains. Since then it has ratified .jobs and .travel addresses. The controversial .xxx, however, has been dogged by delays.

You can read more about the .eu Sunrise Period, the Land Rush Period and general domain info at the EURid website.

What are your thoughts on the .eu domain? Leave a comment via the link below.