.EU will be introduced as the future Top-Level-Domain of the European Union. It is not intended as a replacement for the ccTLDs, such as .DE, .FR, .AT, etc., but is considered as an identification with the European Community whithatch will establish itself as the counterpart to the meanwhile unspecifically utilized .COM and the American .US domain in the long run.
If you consider the time required for the preparation of the registration-system as well as the determination of the registration policies, then we assume that .EU domain-registrations will not start until the end of 2003. We will keep you informed on the further development.
Please note that the final registration policies have not yet been determined, but up to date the following groups will be allowed to register .EU domains: companies, organizations and individuals based within the European Union. Unfortunately it is not known at this point in time, if there will be any further exceptions.
It is expected that there will be a sunrise period where trademark holders can register trademark corresponding domains, before the public. As soon as the required details have been specified by the registry Eurodns.com will enable add-ons for trademark details on your application.
Since there is no official Registry for .EU Domains yet, many registrars decided to accept pre-registrations in their own database. They have thereby the possibility of following the "first-come-first-served" principle or they can accept multiple pre-registrations for one domain-name, but shortly before the submission to the registry they will have to choose one customer. As registrars prefer the first option, we recommend you secure your desired name as soon as possible.
As soon as the registrations start, many accredited registrars will be authorized to submit one pre-registration per domain name. The success of a domain-registration is dependentd on the regulation how the domains will be allocated, e.g. first-come-first served or random process. Therefore no registrar can guarantee a successful domain-registration at this point in time.
As a registrar cannot provide you with detailed information on pricing or registration policies yet, registrars accept pre-registrations of .EU domains free-of-charge. Shortly before the start of the registrations - i.e. when registrars have all necessary information on pricing and regulations - they will ask you for prepayment of the domain registration fees. Please note: this is not an extra charge, but only a prepayment which will completely be offset with your regular registration fee in case of a successful registration of your domain. Should a registrar not be able to register your desired domain, then the prepayment will be credited to your customer account, where it can be completely refunded at any time.
Whenever a new TLD is introduced, there are a lot of people who try to reserve numerous domain-names with several registrars in order to increase their chances for attractive domains. Unfortunately it sometimes happens that exactly these people are very successful and register a large amount of domains but notice afterwards that they do not have the financial means - or are sometimes not willing - to pay all the fees. In order to avoid this situation and enable our customers to register the domain(s) they desire, registrars double-check the seriousness of each domain order by charging a pre-payment. We ensure you again that this is simply a registration fee and NO extra charge for the pre-registration.
As registrars are presently not in the position to provide you with detailed information on the .EU policies and the costs involved, the pre-registrations within their database is not binding yet and free-of-charge. As soon as registrars have more detailed information you will receive an email from them informing you of the various different procedures and costs involved (pre-payment see above). Your pre-registration becomes binding after receipt of pre-payment for the domain. All domains for which we receive no pre-payment will be deleted and will be available for everybody to register.