The European Commission chooses EURid to manage .eu domain names

http://www.eurid.eu/en/content/european-commission-chooses-eurid-manage-eu-domain-names

Brussels, Pisa, Stockholm, May 22nd 2003—Today, the Commission announced that it has chosen the EURid consortium to run the .eu TLD. EURid is a not-for-profit organisation that is built around the Belgian, Italian and Swedish registries.

This decision is the latest step in the process of creating a new European Top Level Domain extension. EURid responded to the Call for Expression of Interest that was launched by the European Commission in August last year. A panel of independent experts then evaluated the bids and indicated EURid as the best choice to run the .eu registry.

The three registries have very complementary competences:

The Belgian registry (DNS BE) has gone through a successful liberalisation at the end of 2000, an experience that is similar to the creation of a new registry. DNS BE will make available its automated registry system that is considered as one of the most advanced in the market.

The Italian registry (IIT-CNR), as a division of a well-known research institute, has developed tools for securing electronic transactions. Their security systems and the related know how, in combination with their experience of running a large registry will be a key factor in the success of the .eu registry.

The Swedish registry (NIC-SE) has been involved in the creation of Internet standards and has a long standing tradition of interactive consultation with the local and international Internet community. This experience will be crucial in the start up phase of .eu. Recently, .se has made the step to an open and unrestricted registry.

While promoting virtual offices where competences are spread over different locations, EURid’s head office will be located in Brussels and will house the main development and operational teams, as well as the support organisation focused on the central region. Other regional offices overlooking the northern and southern regions will be established in Sweden and Italy.

EURid will work exclusively through a network of registrars to promote competition. The registrars will have a completely automated registration system at their disposal to register .eu domain names for their customers, with minimal or no human intervention from the registry.

Although the .eu TLD is a relative latecomer to the market, EURid estimates that a potential of 1 million domain names after 1 year is still possible.

Next steps
In the coming weeks, negotiations will take place between the European Commission and EURid to finalise the agreement and to establish the public policy for the .eu registry. Once the administrative part is finalised, including the delegation from ICANN, EURid estimates that .eu can go life within the next 6 months.

It is clear that a lot of issues still need to be resolved and that some will depend on the definition of the public policy and on further negotiations with the European Commission. We will hold a press conference as soon as we have more details from these discussions with the Commission.

DNS Belgium
DNS BE was created in february 1999 by ISPA Belgium, Agoria and Beltug with the purpose to register and manage domain names in the .be domain space. Advisory members of the board are : the BIPT, the ministry of Economic Affairs, professors Pierre Verbaeten (KUL) and Paul Van Binst (ULB) and the former president of the board Joeri Uyttendaele. DNS BE has currently more than 250.000 .be domain names.

IIT-CNR
IIT-CNR is the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of the Italian National Research Council. The Institute carries out research, technology transfer and training activities in information and communication technologies (wireless mobile Internet, internetworking techniques and network security, certified electronic transactions, etc…) and computational sciences (algorithms and computational complexity, algorithms for WEB technologies, computational biology, etc.). IIT-CNR is managing the .it ccTLD since December 1987, when the 1st ARPANET node was set up in Italy. The .it registry contains, at present, over 800.000 domain names.

NIC SE Network Information Centre AB
Nic-SE was created in July 1997 by the Foundation for Internet-Infrastructure (IIS) with the purpose to register and manage domain names in the .se domain space. Nic-Se is a subsidiary of IIS. The board members of IIS are appointed by Isoc-Se, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, the Swedish Internet Operators Forum, the Swedish Federation of Trade, the Swedish Consumer agency and the Swedish Bankers Association. NIC-SE has currently more than 160.000 domain names.