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Paris (pte027/28.02.2005/12:30) - Europe is set to become and internet fixture with the launch of its own extension - the .eu domain - and businesses are preparing themselves for the battle to bear the two letters. As Indom http://www.indom.com , a French firm specialised in the registration of name domains, reports, 500 million potential European candidates for the new domain will converge in a "gold rush". While the date for the attribution of the new extension has not yet been set, businesses have been gearing up for the prestigious new web address.
"The opening of a new extension on the internet is a major event for businesses," said Thomas Setillanges, Indom's communications director. "The pivotal move closes the door to other companies by depriving them of the chance to get strategic names, while it also opens the door for those wanting to expand their presence on the internet," he explained.
At the end of 2004, there were an estimated 65 million domain names in Europe, with 32 million of them ending in the .com extension. However, unlike .com, which was originally created to designate commercial activities but then attributed freely following the success of the internet, .eu aims to keep its specificity: a European Union identity. "The companies who want to give a European dimension to their businesses can't allow themselves to be absent from this new zone," said Stephanie Van Gelder, co-founder of Indom and administrator of AFNIC, the body that manages domain names in France.
The idea of a .eu extension was first discussed in 1997 and by April 2002, the European Commission, which saw it as a way of developing e-commerce in Europe, decided to pursue the project. In October 2004, the commission gave the green light to EURid, the Belgium-based registrar of European domain names, to set up the rules of attribution for .eu. Those rules are expected to be published in the coming weeks, although their main points are already widely known. The .eu extension will be available for any business with its headquarters, its administration or its main office in the European Union, as well as any organisation established in the EU or any person residing in any of the bloc's 25 member states. Initially, Switzerland, which is not an EU member, will not be eligible for the shared identity.
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