British Businesses Slow To Register .EU
April 7, 2006 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — British businesses have been slow to respond to the impending threat of their .eu domain names falling into the hands of competitors or cybersquatters. Starting today, registration for .eu European Domain names is open to the general public.
The European businesses were given the opportunity to register their trademarks from December 7, 2005 to thwart possible attempts by competitors or cybersquatters from stealing their .eu domain names.
To date, European businesses have filed 330,000 applications applying for 235,000 different .eu domain names, which are approved on a first come, first served basis. The remaining 95,000 are potential domain name disputes where two or more parties have claimed they have a prior right or trademark entitling them to that domain. The majority of domain name requests have come from German businesses, which comprise 28.6 percent of the applications. British businesses fall behind the Dutch (16.6 percent) and French (11 percent) with just 9.2 percent of all applications.
“The alarm bells should be ringing for any company which has yet to secure its trademarks in .eu,” says Jonathan Robinson, COO for NetNames. “As of today there’s no protection for companies’ trademarks and it’s open season on the .eu domain name for competitors, domain name speculators and cybersquatters.”
