Top > Webmaster > 2006 > April > 2006-04-14

New .eu Domain Name is Starting to Take Form

Last week the new ".eu" Internet domain name was launched, and over 300,000 people rushed to register for a ".eu" domain name in the first four hours alone, as said by European Union officials last Friday. The registrations for the new ".eu" domain are opened for people who reside in one of the 25 union countries.

EU Commissioner Viviane Reding said the Commission hopes the new ".eu" name will one day rival the ".com" name. "Europe and its citizens can now project their own Web identity, protected by EU rules," she said, adding that most of the people who registered were from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium." All EU institutions, including the Commission, European Parliament and the EU`s general Web site will switch to the ".eu" name on May 9, Europe day, Reding said.

The European Registry of Internet Domain Names, or EURid, the nonprofit organization in charge of handling the requests reported at midday, over 550,000 domain names had been registered. Businesses and public bodies have been able to sign up for the new European Union Internet address since December. Reding said 320,000 such sites were filed.