Hundreds of thousands of businesses raced on Tuesday to snap up “.eu” internet domain names, with “sex.eu” taking the prize for the most sought-after address on the first day companies could apply.
Two months after the .eu domain name was launched for public institutions and trademark holders, the tag was opened up to companies other than those seeking a site for a brand, as well as for art works and literature.
Within the first hour, sex.eu domain had received 23 applications, followed by schumacher.eu with 15, realestate.eu with 12 and business.eu also with 12 applications, according to the European Registry of Internet Domain Names (Eurid).
In the first 15 minutes Eurid — a non-profit organisation appointed by the European Commission to manage requests — received 27 949 applications overall and after one hour the number had risen to 71 235.
The “.eu” domain name is not supposed to replace national endings such as “.fr” and “.de” but rather offer the possibility of a pan-European identity in cyberspace.
Germans led the way by mid afternoon making up 30,5% of the total applications received to date followed by The Netherlands with 16% and France with 10,6%.
Individuals will have to wait until the second quarter of 2006 before trying to get access to their own veritable European piece of the internet. – AFP