* U.S. companies want .eu domain names
The hottest new address on the Web is .eu, and U.S. companies are lining up in droves to pre-register .eu names.
After five years of debate, the European Union is finally launching a top-level domain for companies marketing their brands across this 25-country geographic region. U.S. domain name registrars in July began pre-registering names with the .eu extension, which are expected to go live in November.
Domain name resellers say .eu names are generating more demand than other corporate-oriented top-level domains entered into the domain name system in recent years, including .info, .biz and .pro.
“We’re seeing tremendous pent-up demand from our clients,” says David Saiais, vice president and general manager of Register.com’s Corporate Services Division. “Anyone trying to market their products in the European Union wants to get as much exposure as possible on the Web.”
Companies that are pre-registering .eu names include pharmaceuticals, consumer brands and manufacturers.
“The demand is really across the board as we look at our client base,” Saiais, whose division represents large multinationals. “This is the hottest domain we’ve ever had in a pre-registration mode.”
Register.com won’t say exactly how many U.S. companies have pre-registered .eu names. However, they said that most of these companies already own domain names with popular European extensions including .de for Germany and .uk for the U.K.
“The main reason companies are buying .eu names is for protection purposes,” Saiais says. “One reason is that .eu is a first-in service. If a number of companies have rights to the same domain name, it will be awarded to the first company that requests it and has supporting documentation.”
Saiais says Register.com is also seeing increased demand for individual European extensions, especially in countries such as Spain that are making it easier for U.S. companies to qualify for names in their country code extensions.
Pricing for .eu names has not been finalized yet. The EURid registry http://www.eurid.com, which manages the central database for .eu names, has said their registration fee will be 10 Euros per registration, per year. Register.com says it will have different prices for .eu names depending on the length of the registration and the level of support and documentation provided.
Register.com officials say the high level of interest among U.S. companies for .eu names fits with other trends including strong demand for domain names with other European and Chinese extensions.
“We’re seeing corporate domain name portfolios increase an average of 20% to 23% a year,” Saiais says. “That has to do with liberalization of some country code top-level domains, getting into markets like China and more efforts to centralize domain name policies across companies.”
Corporate network managers soon will be able to purchase names with a slew of other new extensions including .jobs, .travel, .post, .tel, .mail, .asia and .mobi. Each of these new names is sponsored by a trade organization and designed for a specific purpose. In contrast, .eu will be more generally available to U.S. companies.
Register.com officials anticipate more demand for .eu names than any of these other new extensions.
“With respect to .travel, our clients feel that the registration process is so restricted that if you’re not in the travel industry you don’t have to register for protection purposes,” Saiais says. “We’re seeing some interest for .jobs. Among HR departments, there will be some demand. But we haven’t seen a high level of interest in the other sponsored top level domains.”
