Starting Gun for .asia Domains

The starting gun for the international top-level domain (TLD) of .asia has been fired. As one of the pioneer domains, the www.asiadns.asia address – one of the first available .asia Web sites – belongs to the registrar EuroDNS. The new TLD covers 73 countries in Asia, the Pacific region, and Australia. “These countries include traditional economic powerhouses like Japan and Australia as well as booming countries like Korea, India, and China,” says Frederick Schiwek, who is responsible for international sales at EuroDNS.

Effective immediately, owners or authorized representatives of trademark rights can reserve “their” domain for the booming Asia region. In the initial sunrise phase, reservations can be made for trademarks registered before March 16, 2004 and that are currently published and used. Companies do not have to supply supporting documentation with their applications, but must present it upon request. The initial phase lasts until October 30, 2007.

The next phase runs from November 13, 2007 to January 15, 2008. During this phase, domains can be requested for trademarks that were applied for before December 6, 2006. Brand names combined with the classes of the Nice Classification system can also be applied for during this period. Examples include XYZ-Fruitjuice.asia and XYZ-Textiles.asia. Supporting documentation must be produced upon request. Companies and organizations that have operated in a .asia country before December 6, 2006 can request the name of their company or organization as a domain, but they must also supply supporting documentation.

As a registrar accredited by the DotAsia organization, EuroDNS offers a registration service for the sunrise phase of the .asia domain. The annual fee is Euro 18; DotAsia charges Euro 90 (including sales tax) to examine the request during the sunrise phase. “If DotAsia denies the request, the fee cannot be refunded,” says Schiwek, “but EuroDNS will refund the annual fee of Euro 18 in such a case.” As another plus, EuroDNS offers all registrants of a .asia domain a .asia.com address with the same name – if available, of course.

The landrush phase offers registration of .asia domains to the general public and is scheduled to start in February 2008. If several parties request the same domain during one of the phases, the domain will be auctioned rather than assigned according to the rules of "first come, first served.” After the live phase, which should start in March 2008, the remaining domains will be assigned to parties who submitted their applications first.

Frederick Schiwek
EVP & Int’l Business Development
press@eurodns.com
Tel: +352 202005 33
Fax: +352 202009 33

EuroDNS is a global domain registrar headquartered in Luxemburg and has an office in Korea. The company focuses on geographic domain names. The registration portal at www.eurodns.com operates in 10 languages and features more than 25 TLDs in the European market. www.asiadns.asia features TLDs for Asian markets. For more information, please visit www.eurodns.com or www.asiadns.asia.

This release was published on openPR.