I think the British nose for a quick buck is strongly outweighing any Euroscepticism
in this case...


>-- Original Message --
>Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 08:02:23 +0800
>From: Kim Davies <kim&#167;cynosure.com.au>
>To: Jon Lawrence <jon&#167;jonlawrence.com>
>Cc: ".au DNS Discussion List" <dns&#167;dotau.org>
>Subject: Re: [DNS] .eu
>
>
>Hi Jon,
>
>Quoting Jon Lawrence on Monday April 10, 2006:
>| .de is the second biggest TLD in the world, .co.uk is the 4th and I think
>| .nl is also in the top 10 so it's not surprising that these countries
make
>| up the most .eu registrants.
>
>I for one am surprised there was such a strong correlation... UK is
>notoriously un-Eurocentric compared to the rest of Europe, and it could
>be argued those with the most domains saturation would have their community's
>domain appetites sated more than other contries.
>
>It would be fair to say .de has so many domains because the local ISPs
>hand them out for free like candy, so the strong demand might be due to
>increased awareness of domains, but I doubt due to some unmet pent up
>demand.
>
>| Clearly the secret to a succesful TLD launch is to announce it, then
wait
>| five years while the demand builds...
>
>Lovely Brussels bureaucracy...
>
>Kieren McCarthy's take on it is at
>http://www.kierenmccarthy.co.uk/blog/_archives/2006/4/9/1873359.html,
>but I fail to understand how he comes to the conclusion:
>
>   "The huge registrations of the .eu domains say one thing very, very
>   loudly in my view: ICANN - YOU DO NOT KNOW BEST WHEN IT COMES TO
>   TOP-LEVEL DOMAINS!!!"
>
>   "The new, shiny .eu domain - despite having come from the stultifying
>   world of European bureaucracy - has demonstrated the world wants the
>   Internet its way - and that is fast, flexible and open. Another new
>   season of the Internet is upon us."
>
>It is hard to reconcile how it is "fast, flexible and open" compared to
>gTLDs when it takes years to deploy, requires arcane validation agencies
>to vet applications, has huge reserved lists etc.etc. .info and .biz
>had none of those and were relative flops. In addition, the claim that
>"ICANN - YOU DO NOT KNOW BEST WHEN IT COMES TO TOP-LEVEL DOMAINS!!!" is
>particularly ironic given .eu was approved by ICANN in the first place.
>
>At the end of the day, .eu succeeds because it is a name people want, it
>is that simple.
>
>kim