By Sarah Left, 29 November 1999 00:30
NEWS The European Commissioner for Enterprise and IT, Erkki Liikanen, has hinted that he will front an EC initiative for a dot-eu domain name. Speaking exclusively to Silicon.com, Liikanen suggested that he is considering asking ICANN to award the new top level domain name to the Commission. "This is on my agenda," he smiled, adding that he expected to have a more detailed answer in two weeks time. The dot-eu name is being championed by London law firm, Dibb Lupton Alsop (DLA), and the association of European internet service providers, EuroISPA. DLA sent a letter to Liikanen two weeks ago, explaining the idea: "With over 7,000,000 dot-com domain names having been registered to date, there is now an increasing demand from companies (and individuals) that wish to move into the world of ecommerce, but are not able to obtain a satisfactory 'international' Internet address from which to do so, as most obvious addresses were registered some time ago." At the moment, DLA added, surfers have to contend with the balkanisation of European domain names, such as dot-co-dot-uk for Britain, dot-de for Germany, and dot-it for Italy. Mike Pullen, a lawyer with DLA in Brussels, concluded with a warning to the EC. "They don't want to make the same mistake the Americans made with Network Solutions," he said, referring to the problems caused when the Virginia registrar was given exclusive rights over dot-com. He said open competition is an essential consideration when handing over the administration of the name to European registrars.
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