Go Live on schedule for March 26, 2008 as .Asia outpaces .EU in quality and quantity

Individual companies and the general public will soon be eligible to register for available .Asia domain names when the Landrush phase kicks off on February 20, 2008. Landrush concludes on March 12, with Go Live (i.e. start of normal First-Come-First-Served registration process) scheduled for March 26, 2008.

During the Landrush phase anyone around the world can apply for any available .Asia domain, representing a golden opportunity for individuals looking to invest in the most prestigious and potentially profitable cyber real estate in Asia. Domain names receiving more than one application during the Landrush period will be auctioned between the applicants in an equitable process that would encourage the adoption of the .Asia domain. Popular “keyword” domains, such as names consisting of common terms are expected to generate the most intense bidding.

Last year, about 10.1 million new domain names were registered every quarter worldwide, compared with 8.7 million each quarter in 2005. “If you look at the trend in overall registrations, especially with the strong growth in Asia, we can project a huge number of applications during the Landrush period,” said Edmon Chung, DotAsia CEO.

A meticulous verification process has begun for the 15,000 applications received by the close of Sunrise 2a (the first phase of trademark Sunrise), with a majority already processed. The success rate to date has been extremely impressive. At over 95%, it is nearly double the rate of previous domain launches (such as for the .EU domain which was around 50%).

Chung added that, “Given the strict rules for the first phase of Sunrise coupled with the high success rate for the phase, not only do we believe that the launch has been smooth and successful, we estimate that .Asia is outpacing the .EU launch in quality as well as in net quantity. If the history of previous launches is an indicator, the first phase of Sunrise would represent about 10% of the total volume expected through Sunrise, and the total number from Sunrise would in turn represent about 10% of the total expected coming out of Landrush.”

According to the statistics at the .EU registry, the total number of accepted Sunrise registrations (based on National Trademarks and Company Names) was 102,799.

Bart Lieben, managing the .ASIA verification process for Deloitte and Laga, remarked:
“Overall, the application process has been smooth and orderly. The high success rate is a testimony both to the comprehensiveness of DotAsia’s Sunrise Policies along with our mutual outreach efforts. Our experience in managing similar processes in the past has shown that the complexity of a trademark sunrise should not be overlooked. For the .ASIA Sunrise, we have put in an extra effort in order to ensure that genuine trademark owners are able to register the domains for which they held such rights, adding up to the overall success of the new name space.”

Chung urges companies that have not yet applied to protect their brands or trademarks by registering during the Sunrise period (which ends January 15, 2008), when trademarked corporations and registered juristic entities such as companies, organizations, societies, cooperatives, partnerships, and collectives in the DotAsia Community are given the priority to register their own entity name as a .Asia domain.