In a column of June 3rd, I reviewed Regulation 874/2004, which provides for a specific dispute resolution scheme in regard to the EU’s nascent website suffix, .eu. The adoption of this Regulation was one of the elements paving the way for .eu domain names to be available in a near future. About a week ago, EURid, the company selected by the Commission to run the .eu domain name registry, announced that the wrangling of late between member states over regulatory issues came to a close. As a consequence, the contract between EURid and the Commission was signed on October 12th. This will be another important step towards www.europa.int becoming www.europa.eu. More important, other European-specific domain names, for instance for companies with EU-wide business activities, are closer to be available.
The registration process is expected to begin in August 2005, after the resolution of many technical and translation issues. At that time, it is expected that several millions of companies, organizations, and individuals will apply for a .eu domain name. These domain names will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis, except for clearly abusive registrations. As Internet presence becomes increasingly important, the signature of the contract between EURid and the Commission should not only be a further step towards the .eu registry, but also one for future domain name holders to get ready
Reproduction autorisée avec indication de la source :
Thomas Schultz, www.unige.ch/ceje, actualité n°: 152 du 18 octobre 2004.