14 DAY TRIAL // The organization internationally entitled to grant and administrate web domains, ICAAN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) approved the release of an European web domain characterized by the .eu extension.
During an ICAAN recent meeting, the president of this organization, Vint Cerf, signed the agreement with Eurid (the consortium assigned by the European Commission to regulate the new web domain) through which the .eu domain was born.
Negotiations between the two organizations lasted almost six months, although the European consortium was hoping to establish quickly the domain functioning conditions and rules. No explanation was given on why the adopting and approving of the domain was delayed. So far, the technical details haven't been solved and they will take another two weeks.
Eurid will finalize the recording policy of the .eu addresses which will be approved by the European Commission. The names of the domains will be given to solicitors according to the criterion "first come, first served" and the second step which will consist of setting domain priorities, will start at the beginning of the next year, with "only" a two year delay from the date initially established.
EURid announces that during the next weeks, ".EU" will be officially included into the database of the 13 computers forming DNS's principal directories (Domain Name System).
Currently, the majority of Internet domains (almost 250 domains) is granted only to a country or to a territory and the complete list is kept at the International Organization for Standards. Although the European Union is no on that list, ICAAN has decided to grant separate codes from a list reserved to standard groups.
The first web addresses with the .eu extension will appear after a few months, after finishing off the treaties and all the technical details.