“Today the competitive knowledge society that is Europe is becoming particularly visible to the eyes of the world on the Internet”, says European Commissioner for the information society and the media, Viviane Reding, who launched Top Level Domain .eu last week (enabling businesses, public bodies and citizens to choose a pan-European Internet name for their websites). All residents in the European Union “can ask to register a name in Top Level Domain .eu”, she explained. The Commissioner also reported the end of the “sunrise” period, during which the holders of registered trademarks, public bodies and enterprises could apply for the registration of domain names and obtain the extension .eu to their website: over 300,000 requests have so far been received by Brussels. “Europe and its citizens – added Reding – may now project their own identity on the web, under the protection of EU norms. I now expect that thousands more requests will be made that will succeed in making the European domain an important name on a par with .com”. Registration costs vary through the territory of the 25, starting out from a basic tariff of 12 euros. “The entire website of the Community institutions and all the e-mail addresses of European administrators will transfer to the extension .eu on 9 May, Europe Day”, explains a Commission statement. Hundreds of thousands of requests have been received ever since the introduction of the .eu extension, which promises to become “a coveted and visible space in the world of the web”
