EU Domain

With the current interest in European integration as overseen by the EU, it is no surprise that there is now an Eudomain, giving Europe it’s own identity online which has been around since December 2005 ad has been in talks from before 2002. The intention was to boost recognition of the European Union through the internet to reach a global audience, and to at the same time give webmasters and private users the choice of more domain names. An EU domain name might be particularly useful for a business operating solely within Europe but across multiple countries of the EU, or for sites that deal with aspects of multiple European countries such as one focussed on tourism. This gives those sites and businesses a ‘pan European identity’. The European TLD is managed by EURid consortium.

As one might suspect, the EU domain ends ‘.eu’. An EU domain then would look like so: ‘www.example.eu’. Here the ‘.eu’ is referred to as a ‘top level domain’ and is an alternative to other TLDs such a ‘.com’ or ‘.net’. The EU domain now exists alongside other domains specific to individual European countries such as ‘.fr’ (for France), ‘.it’ (for Italy) etc. A business might choose to use domains for their specific regions such as those mentioned along with an EU domain and to redirect the two URLs to the same site. Some companies also use their EU domain in order to list their national sites. When it was first launched, holders of trademarks were given the opportunity to register early (through what is known as a ‘sunrise period’ with the aim of preventing ‘cyber squatting’ – which is where individuals buy up well known domains and then sell them on to companies for larger amounts.

An EU domain is available to any individual or business residing or operating within a European country. In order to get your own EU domain, you will need to find a hosting company or domain registration service that offers them, and register your domain – it will have to be one that is not previously in use.

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