Analysis about a society fact

In the last top international meetings into the management sector about domain names, Domaine.fr®, the first historical French registrar and the management leader on many extension sectors has been regularly consulted  to give its opinion on the luck would be reserved to .eu.

Before the analysis of this new extension did on public last Friday at 11:00 o’clock sharp, it is convenient to do a first general act about the context and present tendencies.

First, we gave, starting from the .Eu opening last Friday, our valuation of 1 million new registering names over the last weekend. Actually, it was exactly 96%. In fact, on Sunday, April 9 at 11:59 p.m., a little more than 1.300.000 names were into the Eurid counter, and we knew 246.000 had been asked for during sunrise 1 and 2 periods.

Place about number of registering names /Country/ number

1-DE (Germany) 410.638
2-GB (Great Britain) 268.396
3-NL (Netherlands) 152.442
4_IT (Italy) 80.882
5-CY (Cyprus) 73.217
6-SW (Sweden) 62.223
7-FR (France) 51.589
8-BE (Belgium) 32.688
9-AT (Austria)  25.777
10-PL (Poland) 21.843
11-SP (Spain) 20.839
12-DK (Denmark) 19.915
13-IE (Ireland) 16.602
14- CZ (Czech Republic) 15.958
15-LU (Luxemburg) 9.339
16-MT (Malta) 8.258
17-HU (Hungary) 6.892
18-SK (Slovakia) 4.013
19-FI (Finland) 3.799
20-LV (Leetonia) 2.517
21-PT (Portugal) 2.442
22-LT (Lithuania) 1.238
23-EE (Estonia) 1.222
24- SI (Slovenia) 1.135
25-AX (Alan Islands) 616
26-GI (Gibraltar) 221
27-RE (Reunion Islands) 70
28-GR (Greece) 61
29-MQ (Martinique) 17
30-GP (Guadeloupe) 13
31-GF (French Guiana) 3

(You can follow directly this evolution into this direction. These numbers are brought up to date each 15 minutes and they will evolve in a very different way hereafter).

Europe, Europe and still Europe. In the beginning of this XXI century, this seems the biggest work. During the last 15 years, developed countries or in way of development progressed more than in the last century and a half. A 100% evolution in both, technical as in their costumes. This is, largely, because of means of communication explosion, and who speaks about this, is speaking about Internet, of course.

Everybody (or almost everybody) remember the famous .com  who, in the beginning preached about commercial activities. The .net  was working with net activities (Network: from this the name .Net) and the .org to organizations. There wasn’t any other extension in that time, nor .Fr, nor .INFO, nor .US ( for the USA). It was the time of “all  generic things”, and it is exactly this scarcity who took Mr. “whole word” in direction to reserve family names, the name of the puppy or even the tropical residence under .com extension. Any condition was required, there weren’t restrictive standards apart of special characters and stressed, and over all, you had the security of touching the whole planet that only longed for it at that time..

Also, press and means of communication like television or radio, whiteness of the increasing about the potency of this net, couldn’t not only cite this famous .com, the other two already had a specific and less attractive use. Paradoxically, the .com was the perfect performance of .net. Therefore, .com took place inside the spirit of each one between us, hence the famous boom dowry-COM

Approximately, four years got along and to the end of the 90 ‘s, .com was saturated, even some of them had the obligation of showing their society working on certain commercial activity to another extension like .net or .org . The name they want was already available in  both. This was more expensive than the beginning of a judicial procedure to an imaginary owner living in Taiwan or Perpete-les-oies. But, these last extensions weren’t popular and it is, like always, that internets came back to .com systematically. Other ones (specially Registrars: registering offices) could see the hen of golden eggs and register in a body all possible and conceivable names from the moment where they could suppose  intentions, good or bad orthography from the others. (They will be named “typo-squatting”, later. Some of them only had the purpose of  turning aside the traffic. For example, www.apple.com or www.aplle.com in order of recovering the deviated one because a typing mistake when this famous Californian company was introduced under its correct name www.apple.com)

The initiative of  “working into sectors” and  “regulating” was born with the help of new extensions. By taking again the torch of IANA they did this under the DoC, Us Department of Commerce guardianship throughout  the famous MoU, Memorandum of Understanding. Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers had the heavy task of  reconciling increasing needs of this more and more international community with  a controlled and structured net maintenance. This project on sectors passed on first place into geographical cuttings, borders and natural recoveries of co-worker countries. The beginning was, naturally, in this point and it allows each country has its own “area” into this extended net. Germany was the country  with the best marriage. The reason was simple. It is a rich country, turned to the industry  and the main European exporter, a free policy on name attributions, “almost” the same of .com and with an aggressive custom policy. Each Government is free for establishing their own attribution rules, the success as sociological as commercial wasn’t the same  from one country to another. On the contrary, it permitted that Virtual Internet was materialized, became tame and overcame. Frequently, Internet is so impalpable, far and wild, been lock up  surrounding  a familiar culture from a country, our own country. Isn’t it true the fear is born inside the ignorance or the incapacity to seeing anything? Isn’t gigantism, like in the bottom of the sea, who puts fright inside us? Isn’t the man looking for being safe all the time? Bring the .net into a national scale allowed us a better understanding and consequently a better control on the fluctuation into our new method of communication: the electronic.

Therefore, each country gave its fellow-countryman the possibility  to showing under an identity into a different area, being useful their virginity for coming back or going out almost from zero. Mr. “whole word” who hadn’t had the opportunity  of knowing domain names in the 80’s could offer its puppy name into com.fr and soon, directly under .fr.

When it said to its surrounding the electronic address of its site inside Internet, it is turned natural and genuine found it under the national extension, .fr. But we never have to forget that .com had left indelible tracks, the lambda surfer has the uncomfortable tendency of coming back to .com, like his fingers leads him for the discovery of another type of puppy into a mitigated joy…

But strong because of its publicity and announcements, and after 5 years of  never ending poundings, the companies and means of communication knew how to become popular their local ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domaine). Other countries had done the same, then they could identify the geographical area of whom they were communicating. The .de for Germany, the .es for Spain, the .co and .uk for Great Britain, the .us for the USA etc…

We could state the question about the .Us profit. They know it is 100% American and Americanized and represents perfectly the American identity until the arriving of our famous ccTLDs. This will strengthened the legitimacy of this need of geographic identity, the .com had became into the Ketchup of tomato sauce, the kleenex of paper handkerchiefs or the tampax of tampons throughout the world, it was necessary to center and to put closer American internets with the same concept that was into the other countries, even the stressed derivatives or multi-languages of .com. Multiply  each one of these practices in each one of the languages throughout the planet and you will obtain a number that , for sure no one extension never will be able to equalize.

The geographical American extension couldn’t fail with this act….In theory! Into practice, the .com law was the one who reigned for the previous mentioned reasons. The .us knew and knows the loss because the situation of direct competition with the.com. Not a lot of companies wanted to reduce their presence into Internet by closing their doors to Canada, Europe, South America, Asia, etc… Only local merchants find a parade for the unbridled covetousness of  com for the promotion of its products and services on a national scale. But it is necessary to remember we are talking about the rule exception. Only Germany adds about 10 million registered names by its citizens, that means closer than 7 more than the .us, though these last advances in a rhythm of 1.00 new names each day.


Undoubtedly, the .eu will exceed the .us number for a very simple mathematic reason. The .us thinks it represents numerous States from the USA that have a common determinate point: the language. Wherefore, if we offer a place under the .eu extension for kids ( in comparison with the kids.us contour for USA), we will have almost so many alternatives like languages are practiced  in the Union + English + typosquatting + stressed characters will come  in Europe!. Bambini.eu, Enfantes .eu, kinder.eu etc… will be essential alternatives into the Union. This simple calculus will give the advantage in number to .eu before a size disadvantage wins over it.


The negative point is the fact that .eu will join with USA  not only in a nationalist sense of the term but for the linguistic unit we mention before. They look so well themselves throughout an extension that represents proudly the USA in all. Now, we don’t have a multi-official culture but a multi- cultural and linguistic Federal State. There, where Americans will feel comfortable into a net navigation finding products or services in their language and in one that they call their country, we will find strange, unusual or even dangerous the fact of confiding our needs to an European who also has his own flag in Brussels, all is unknown for us. The announcer will find his limits, too.

How do we propose a product or a service for a kind of Europe that some interchanges have just finished liberating? Where doesn’t the commerce follow the same protection standards? Where do courts of justice have the equity sense and the maintenance of commerce into the concept of European Law? Which term are they going to use for selling French bread in Europe? Pain .eu? Bread .eu? Pane .eu or Pan .eu? Who, they think,  will finish finding them throughout the commercial name or the product? The client that would want to find it, in case of he wouldn’t do it, would go over all into his national extension, before going to the world wide one.The European dimension would be an exclusion made officially to the one used naturally. It isn’t because European States offer a new opportunity to each one of its nationals about registering under a virgin extension ( it is that happened at least with the .eu introduction) not even they move registered domains for example, under .fr into .eu  that internets would have immediately  the reflection of going to .eu! They know that they take the risk of being in Lithuania, Greece or Moldavia. Their national extension would guarantee, at least, a linguistic , juridical and cultural proximity.


Could we say then, the .eu would come to fulfill name unavailability’s into local and generic extensions? But even into this hypothesis, there would be two hypothetic cases:

1-Dominion name register under .eu extension into its country language: if they had the opportunity of obtaining pharmacie.eu, for example, or centercommercial.eu, even they are generic, these names with .eu extension can’t come to an internet thought without a previous communication or mediation. And in this case then, we ask to ourselves, why didn’t we use a more “natural” or adequate extension based into the surrounding communication? In our example, it would be  pharmacieducap.fr or centrecommercialCap3000.com or ,fr? The value of a generic name is in the fact that it can be into the internets thought. How could you convince me that I would be  find the correct shoe for my foot looking for into the Union? Then, it is good that .eu from European Union is entailed. But it could be another reason

2-Apart from the limited quantity of completely generic names being able to travel and difficult to be protected, professionals or domain name owners in .com or a local extension has already taken the initiative of protecting a trade mark related with their domain name or vice versa ( to come back to our repeated example: Apple, its meaning in French is pomme, notorious mark of the American informatics giant). From this fact, and even the applicant is on the top of the application list for the Register inscription, he will have to return it after  a simple UDRP procedure because the anteriority of the existent domain name or the mark are playing in behalf of him. Wherefore, the register offices are also going to take, like we could see for .eu the easier recording names and the most generics from the extension opening for the resale into the second market.

The EURid, the .eu register verified these practices and preferred left Rules and Regulations on WIPO or OMPI Organisation Mondiale de la Propriété Intellectuelle, on UDRP Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policies or national court of justice hands, because it is difficult to contradict the round-up of rules that can be established by a register.

It is interesting, at this point of our analysis, to check and know, Who registered the most generic names? Who got place across the most protecting difficulties of the Sunrise period Rules and regulations ( periods that were principally reserved to all that have rights in relation to copyrights or marks in order to permit the checking and the attainment of a domain name before its opening to ordinary public)?Who knows the best extra-value you can do in the resell of a name to two letters or the so generic type? Who would allow to put more than 3000marks for the INPI (or it national equivalent)  with the objective of giving a name for its reselling or traffic generation? For sure you will have guessed: the famous Registrars: register offices. More than 70% of the most generic names and the most interesting go directly to the base of register offices for reselling or exploiting for being owners of qualities like key words. Even if they aren’t so generic and intuitive than these in .com or .fr, some cracks in a year would be enough for amortizing acquirement costs. The time of first that arrives first in attention belongs to the past. From now it will be necessary talk about: First Registrar that arrives, first Registrar in attention! Americans, natural fore-runners of domain name in this world, after the massive accreditation and registering of domains in .eu ( in English the only language able to join together the biggest public into Europe), next landrush of new extensions won’t be lacking to this occasion for empowering the most interesting names without giving the less opportunity to our French internet’s puppy. But things change, and we are present to a conscious taken by European internets that are again into the game.

At least, we verify, and multinational companies tested this because of its studies on the internets behavior that they used a local extension like .fr alternately to .com in order to approach the offers of this society to the national dimension. If you type Dell.com you will get the American site, for understanding and finding offers done into our hexagon you will go to .fr. The rest we need to prove is, which reason would an internet have to look for being near to a service and/or product with .eu extension? Well, the answer is no-one, simply because if he looks for a maximum presence, he would be with .com and be legitimate. The .eu would bar a priori all that wouldn’t belong to Europe. Now America and Asia are the most active continents on the .net domain and its exclusion is hardly justify.

In relation with other companies that aren’t present in an European or international scale, the only accurate extension is still the local extension. And if you find a big part of these under .com it is because of the restriction on the attribution conditions of .fr and its latest arriving. But this fault was mending and goes like this, in particular, with the total opening of the French extension in June, 2006.

In conclusion and for the mentioned reasons, the .eu not being a generic extension like .com will never have the weight and image of this last one. It will count a more important number than .us, for sure, but the interest will be less, even like ccTLD. The only organizations that will get a real benefit will be schools, foundations and European institutions, under the same concept that internationals ( they are joined under .int-international extension). Big marks will limit to borrow this extension to its.com, the .net, the .info, or also the .biz, or to future extensions like, .mobi or also .travel etc…this belongs more exactly to its policy about identity in Internet. The avalanche to the .eu has an explanation  because in the first place there is a wish of protection of existent signs, the re-protection against the evil typographies, the effect of announcement and the opportunity for obtaining a generic name in a virgin extension and it is increased by the markets over ruled by domain offices.

 But we also want to underline and advise our dear readers about the fact of this analysis is still our vision. It isn’t about undervaluing or criticizing the domain name market . We are self-same well-reputed purveyors since 1996. We did this analysis for you, in order to permit the best understanding about the mechanism of the extensions and its pertinences. You don’t fall into the trap about this or that extension is essential for the life or the electronic survival of your company. If you trade throughout the .net or “domainecotez”, you don’t have doubt in doing the same and  taking possession  of the biggest quantity of domain names  can generate traffic into your site. But if you have a modest dimension, national or a model company and you can go outside the border, or even your company city, you don’t have to disperse into this new extensions. Coiffure.eu doesn’t give you a client more!

It isn’t  because we are into domain name world since 1994, we think we are visionaries! The future keeps surprises that even Internet doesn’t know.

S.B.