.eu Domain Launches and Raises Questions

The European Union's new .eu domain launched on December 7, 2005. As reported by Lucia Kubosova at EUobserver, EURid reported that 40,500 applications were received in the first 15 minutes of launch and over 100,000 had been received by evening of the first day.

Business applications were highest for internet names such as hotels.eu, tickets.eu and job.eu although over 200 applicants also filed for the domain sex.eu.

The assignment of these types of generically named domains is tantamount to a license to print money and we think it would actually be more sensible for the EU to retain these domains for use by non-profits or for EU government use.

Generic names such as hotel.eu, hotels.eu or travel.eu, which cover an entire business field and to which no private business should actually have any priority of access, should be awarded to the major non-profit associations or consumer protection organizations dealing with these subjects in Europe.

sex.eu should be used as a site for sex education or should be awarded to a consumer protection organization dealing with sex sites on the internet, rather than to give it to some private sex website who will make millions just because of having this domain name.

Indeed, the EU has the power to set some new sensible precedents here in the assignment of domain names, especially for those generic "business" domains which are claimed by multiple parties.

We would adopt an internal rule at EURid that generically named sites which are claimed in the "sunrise periods" by more than one party and to which no unique EU trademark priority exists would automatically be reserved for official EU or non-profit use.

Of course, once the "sunrise periods" are over, domains should be assigned on a first come, first served basis, as long as trademarks are not violated, but that is a different question.

Cross-posted to LawPundit.