UK domains at risk as .asia opens to public
- Added:
- Feb 19, 2008
UK brands have been slower than their US and German counterparts to register for the new .asia domain name, which opens to the public tomorrow.
From tomorrow any resident of the DotAsia Community will be able to register their own .asia Asian domain name.
In the four months since October, British brands have signed up to prevent their .asia domain names falling into competitor or cybersquatter hands and were given first opportunity to register their trademarks.
However only 30,780 applications have been filed for .asia domain names so far compared with 330,000 at the same point in the launch of the .eu domain name on 7 April 2006, meaning the majority of businesses are at high risk of losing their trademarks online once the landrush period opens to the general public.
British businesses have lagged behind their American and German counterparts in the applications filed so far with just over 2,000 compared with the 30,000 they filed prior to the .eu landrush.
Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer, NetNames, said: “The alarm bells should be ringing for any company which has yet to secure its trademarks in .asia. As of tomorrow, there’s far less protection for companies’ trademarks and it’s open season on the .asia domain name for cybersquatters, online speculators and competitors.
“The demand for .asia has been understated, which simply means that many businesses are likely to miss out. As the first .asia web sites go live we’re sure to see a number of high-profile, costly disputes which could so easily have been avoided.”
Landrush opens on Wednesday when anyone in the world with an official presence in the DotAsia Community can submit an application for a .asia domain name. Any domain names with more than one application will then be auctioned off to the highest bidder before the .asia go-live date on 26 March 2008.
NetNames manages the domain name portfolios for over 30 per cent of the FTSE 100 companies and can supply a local presence .asia domain name applications.