By Paul Nicholls, InternetNews.com
[London, ENGLAND] The European Commission, which has long
coveted a top level .eu (“doteu”) domain, has now said it will be
introduced in the middle of 2001.
The Interim Steering Group responsible for the matter reconvened
a few days ago and has announced a preliminary timetable, although
many details remain to be resolved.
There is already much talk of the new top level domain for
Europe becoming a rival to the powerful .com, giving Europe a
competitive boost. However, cynics are replying that, similarly,
the euro was supposed to rival the dollar, and has since sunk to 83
cents.
So will the new domain help break what Europeans perceive is the
American dominance of the Internet? Dotcom addresses always suggest
that the service being offered is global, whereas .uk, .de, and .fr
are clearly localized to the U.K., Germany and France
respectively.
In the same way, it would appear that .eu is “localized” to
Europe, and few American customers will think of shopping at a .eu
site unless they are specifically seeking European goods.
As anyone can guess, a new top level domain means a new top
level argument between interested parties. In this case,
Switzerland last month lodged a formal complaint with the EU
Commission because it has been excluded from the domain.
Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU, says the .eu domain
should not be exclusive to the 15 EU member states.
Britain and Denmark will enjoy .eu status, despite not using the
euro currency. Norway, another non-EU member, has not yet decided
whether to complain about its own exclusion from the domain.
There was even some doubt until this month whether a .eu domain
was possible in the short-term. ICANN (Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers) said the EU was not a state and could
not have its own country code Top Level Domain. To have given
Europe a generic or regional alternative would have taken much
longer, but the issue has been resolved by ICANN drawing upon some
reserved codes.
All the merits and drawbacks of “doteu” can be read about and
discussed at the www.doteu-partner.com forum, where Internet users
and cybersquatters can also claim a .eu domain free of charge.