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With much awaited fanfare, .EU is inching ever closer to becoming real!
I am a bit reluctant to say it is actually here until the gates are actually open, but I can imagine that there are many who are grateful as I am that the process has gotten as far as it has.
On March 23rd, 2005, ICANN announced that they had approved an agreement earlier that week with EURid to have .eu added to the root zone, according to the EURid’s Press Release [PDF] and ‘Tentative Timetable’:
“At a meeting on 21 March 2005, the board of ICANN approved the delegation of the new .eu top level domain and authorised their CEO, to enter into an agreement with EURid, the organisation selected by the European Commission to operate the .eu registry. The decision was taken following contractual negotiations between ICANN and EURid over the past few months and approval of the agreement by the European Commission.
The board decision sets in motion the next stage whereby IANA (The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), after seeking approval from the US Department of Commerce puts .eu in the internet root. This is not expected to take more than 10 days.”
There are fewer and fewer delays (aside from the additional development overhead in meeting requirements of providing translation into the many official EU languages, etc…), and most of the more challenging pseudo-political hurdles have been passed.
Assuming that this moves forward with no delays from any of the strategic players, and that EURid can tactically staff up and have their domain provisioning systems active by Q4, this could mean .EU sunrise registrations could potentially begin this calendar year.
ICANN has an agenda item for the morning of Thursday April 7th at the meetings in Mar del Plata, Argentina regarding new TLDs, where more may be revealed.
Within 4 months of the actual sunrise launch (by EURid’s calendar), individual registrations could be available during the 2005 calendar. I anticipate that we will see individual land rush registration numbers that are unprecedented in a two character TLD launch.
I tip my hat to all those involved in this effort of getting the .EU TLD this far, and I wish great success to EURid in the future stewardship of .EU.
Other related reports:
- ICANN approval moves .eu domain forward—The Standard
- ICANN approval means .eu domain should be available this year—Techworld
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>>Within 4 months of the actual sunrise launch (by EURid’s calendar), individual registrations could be available during the 2005 calendar. I anticipate that we will see individual land rush registration numbers that are unprecedented in a two character TLD launch.>>
Much depends upon the Nexus requirement, and how it is enforced. In some geographies and ccTLDs, the Nexus agreement is strictly enforced (.SG, for example). In other geographies, the Nexus agreement exists, but often anyone from anywhere can register (.US, for example).
Although the concept of a physical or geographic nexus allows for national/regional interests to play, in this rapidly globalising world, it sometimes seems outdated.
I hope .EU is a success ... each new TLD that succeeds helps make the global domain industry stronger and more competitive.
EurID has published a new timeline, which seems more right sized for the ambitious project that they are undertaking.
http://www.eurid.org/euDomainNames/timetableLaunch
The key updates are that there have been adjustments to the timeline to begin the Sunrise registrations in the 4th Quarter of 2005, meaning that first-come, first-served registrations would begin 4 months afterwards. This places the general landrush into Q1-2 of 2006.