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Thursday, September 01, 2005

.eu versus .com

A recent article from Capital Magazine discusses about the .EU domains which seems that will enter in the web space in the near future. Also, the article has an appealing name, like the .eu domains will fight with the .com domains.

In my opinion, this is just another scheme aimed at promoting the EU brand in spite of the US-of-A brand. The only difference is that .com doesn't necessarily mean that website is in the States.

The .com domain is one of the top-level domains that was created in 1985, with the purpose of serving commercial websites. Nowadays, the domain is operated by VeriSign and everyone is free to register such a domain, without the need of any proof that the website is actually doing any commercial activities.

There are other top-level domains, such as .edu, for example, where registering such a domain is not everyone's privilege. Under the present system, only post-secondary institutions that are accredited by an agency on the U.S. Department of Education's list of Nationally Recognized Accrediting Agencies are eligible to apply for a .edu domain.

In geographical terms the .EU domain might compete with the .US domain, in the ever-lasting European struggle to be on top of the US in every manner. Nowadays, registrants of .us domains must be United States citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United States. But the domain is not highly used, being traditionally regarded as a domain for US institutions and organizations.

Personally, I am very skeptical about all the European companies switching to .eu instead of .com. It would not be very convenient, specially because (1) they might not necessarily regard themselves as "European" companies, rather German, Romanian or UK companies, depending on the country they originate from and (2) because if a company is widely European, there are a lot of chances that it is also present in non-European countries, and the .com domain name would serve it better.

Nice: Did you know that www.symbolics.com is the oldest and still existing .com domain in the world?

Posted by Mihai : 9/01/2005 03:11:00 pm