New .asia domain reflects growing interest in regional web addresses

EURid, the European registry for .eu, welcomes the arrival of .asia to the Internet. The pioneering .eu domain, which is available to 490 million Europeans in 27 countries, was the first top-level Internet domain for a broad, multi-country region. The launch of .asia next week reflects the growing interest in regional top-level domains, which some regional supporters hope will eventually include Africa and Latin America as well.

No one knows which names will be most popular on October 9, when the .asia registry starts accepting the first round of applications, but EURid’s experience offers some clues. In the first two days .eu domain names became available, EURid received 227 applications for sex.eu, 118 for hotel.eu and 94 for travel.eu.

“The .asia registry will probably see the same rush for generic names but that will pass,” said Marc Van Wesemael, general manager of EURid. “After a time, Europeans realised that a .eu domain was good for business. People in Asia will surely discover that as well.”

Within a few months of its launch, .eu became the third-largest European top-level domain. Today close to 2.6 million domain names are registered and the number of active .eu sites is growing. Bridgestone, Century 21 and Daikin are among the many companies that use .eu domain names to promote their business and products.

According to Paul Butler, general manager of Mirai, www.mirai.eu was the obvious home for his growing company, which produces digital home entertainment products. “We didn’t want dot-com anonymity,” Butler explained. “We wanted to be known as a European company.” Soon Asian companies will have a similar opportunity to stand out on the Internet.

“The .asia domain is a welcome addition to the neighbourhood,” said Van Wesemael. “We offer our best wishes to the .asia registry and .asia domain.”

About EURid—the European Registry of Internet Domain Names

EURid is the not-for-profit organisation appointed by the European Commission to register and manage .eu domain names. EURid was founded in April 2003, with headquarters in Brussels and regional offices in Stockholm, Prague and Pisa. The organisation has seven members: the registries managing the national toplevel domains for Belgium (.be), Sweden (.se), Italy (.it), Slovenia (.si) and the Czech Republic (.cz); the European chapter of the Internet Society; and Business Europe. See www.eurid.eu for more information about .eu and www.registry.asia for more information about .asia.

The news release is also available from EURid’s website here.

Media contact:
Patrik Lindén, EURid communications manager
Patrik.linden@eurid.eu or +46 70 550 71 98