Internet domains in the .EU namespace will be available to the public by this Friday the 7th. And by this time, users are in eager anticipation of registering their very own domains, reserved especially for European businesses and individuals.
The first wave of registration was reserved for trademark holders, wherein companies were given a sunrise period of registering their trademarked names early. Of course, it can be expected that with this system owners of similar or sound-alike trademarked names would clamor for the best names. The presence of domain squatters—or entities registering domain names and then later on re-selling at ridiculously high markups—has also been anticipated.
Managers of the .EU namespace say that the top-level domain will be considered second only to .COM in terms of importance in e-commerce. At this point, upwards of 1,500 entities have applied to serve as registrars that will sell .EU domains to the public. Domains will be charged from 12 to 100 Euros per year.