The launch of .asia is the other big story of the week along with the launch of the IDN test, gaining a lot of coverage around the world and in many languages. Most coverage simply reported the announcement, but a few articles delved a little deeper. The Register notes, “Carpet baggers will have to wait for their chance to hoover up potentially valuable names” as “governments, trademark owners, and official bodies” are currently the only entities able to register.Noting a Latin American and African TLD “are both on their way”, they also quote Nominet’s head Lesley Cowley who says this could be last TLD where there is a huge demand for registrations given ICANN is likely to allow a relaxation in rules leading to a leap in the number of TLDs available. This possible leap in TLDs could mean trademark owners simply feel there are too many TLDs to register a domain name in each one.Meanwhile Agency FAQs quotes Ching Chaio, vice-president, community relations at DotAsia Organisation who says they would like to emulate .eu and are aiming for 2 million registrations.Some of the better stories I found were at:
