November 3, 2005

Hosting company Hostway-UK said Tuesday that it had begun pre-registration for .eu domain names in light of its growing popularity.

Hostway says a survey it conducted found that 60 percent of businesses believe customers will eventually use .eu rather than .com when looking for companies based in the European Union.

Another Hostway survey saw half the respondents saying they preferred region-specific domains over other alternative suffixes such as .biz and .info.

"The decision to establish the .eu domain name has been in the pipeline for around six years, and people are understandably enthusiastic about it - we've had over five hundred calls and enquiries in the last couple of weeks," says Paul Halfpenny, product manager for Hostway.

Hostway is offering pre-registration in two tiers. Customers can pre-register and qualify for domains on a first come first serve basis or pay an administrative fee of £7.50 and go to the front of the line. Hostway is pricing one-year registrations at £19.95 per year.

Official registration for the .eu domain, being phased in over three sunrise stages, commences December 7, 2005. The European Union has 25 member countries.

Source: The WHIR