Signatures on dotted line for .eu

October 2004

EURid, the official Registry for .eu names, has reported that it has finally signed its service contract with the European Commission. This represents a major milestone on the road to the launch of the new domain.

The next step in the process is for the Commission to notify ICANN so that negotiations can proceed for .eu to be put into the domain name system's 'root' - the place where technical pointers to the registries for all official top level domains, both generics (eg. .com) and country codes (such as .uk) are kept.

In a statement, EURid indicated that it wishes the discussions with ICANN to be finalised quickly as it anticipates that there will be a period of six to nine months after this has happened before .eu registrations will be able to commence.

In the meantime, EURid is busy writing the policies which it is obliged to put together under the European Regulation already passed by the Commission. These will cover topics such as how phased registration (similar to the 'sunrise' and 'landrush' periods of other recently introduced names) will work for holders of certain rights, how the Whois database will operate within the existing framework of tough European data protection legislation, and how and by whom disputes over .eu names will be managed. When putting the policies together, EURid will consult with the Commission and other parties, including possibly certain member states. Unlike other registries, EURid will have a major translation task ahead of it too, since it is likely that the policies will need to be expressed in all 20 of the official EU languages.