Issue 155 - 14th May, 2004

Update on .eu launch

The European Commission (EC) has published the public policy rules (PPR) that will govern how the forthcoming .eu domain name system will operate.

The domain was approved by the EC in March 2002 and will be operated by the European Registry of Internet Domain names (EURid). A major obstacle has been the failure of the Commission and Member States to agree public policy rules. But these were finally published on 30th April.

The registry is now able to progress to the next stage, which is to agree a contract with the Commission and to sign an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN then has to make the appropriate technical changes to allow the .eu domain to work.

Revised timetable:
Following the publishing of the PPR, the EC have amended the dates in their tentative timetable to reflect the delay. Currently it looks like this:

• May/June 2004: Preparation and translation
• June/July 2004: Accrediting .eu Registrars
• December 2004 (approximately): Sunrise period (phased registration) begins
• April 2005 (approximately): eu goes live and general registrations begin

Remember:
At this time it is not possible to register or pre-register .eu domain names as there are no accredited Registrars. Companies should ignore any offers to pre-register .eu domain names at this stage, because it is not possible to do so.

The proposed Sunrise period, expected to begin in December, will provide an opportunity for trademark owners to register .eu domain names before they become available to the general public.

N3 lite will keep you informed as the date approaches. Companies can start preparing now buy consolidating their domain name portfolios and implementing a policy on which brands to register and in which regions. More information on the .eu domain name is available from www.eurid.org