The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (www.icann.org), the body that manages Internet domains, announced on March 24 that it has given the official go-ahead to create the European top-level domain suffix .eu. At a meeting of its managing committee, ICANN authorized its president Vint Cerf to sign the agreement with Eurid (www.eurid.org), the consortium chosen by the European Commission as the official caretaker of the new domain name.
Marc Van Wesemael of Eurid said the remaining technical maneuvering will take about two weeks to complete. Eurid is finalizing its registration policy for .eu addresses, which the EC will need to approve. Domain names will be open to the public at large on a first-come, first-served basis, though the second stage isn't expected to begin until early 2006, well behind the planned date of the end of 2003.
