.eu
 | |
| Type: | Non-Profit |
| Industry: | Internet |
| Founded: | 1999 |
| Headquarters: | Woluwelaan 150, 1831 Diegens |
| Country: | Belgium |
| Website: | www.eurid.eu |
| Key People | |
| Marc Van Wesemael, General Manager | |
.eu is the country code top level domain name (ccTLD) of the European Union. It is managed and operated by EURid, a non-profit organization founded by three registry operators namely DNS Belgium, Istituto di Informatica e Telematica and Stiftelsen för Internetinfrastruktur, IIS, under the authority of the European Commission. [1]
Background
In 1999, the eu was approved as the two letter-alpha code for the European Union by the ISO-3166 Maintenance Agency.[2] Subsequently in 2000, the European Council endorsed the creation of .eu TLD during its meeting in Lisbon to improve the electronic commerce within the European Union. On April 22, 2002, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union enacted Regulation (EC) No 733/2002 which calls for the implementation of the .eu ccTLD to represent and promote the image of European community in the global information networks.[3]
O May 21 2003, EURid was delegated by the European Commission as the registry operator of the .eu ccTLD in consultation with its member States.[4] On April 28, 2004, the European Union adopted the Policy Rules on how to implement the .eu ccTLD under which it serves as a complementary domain name to the existing ccTLDs in Europe and other generic top level domain names (gTLD) for the purpose of increasing competition and providing alternative choice to internet users in the region and to improve the interoperability of networks within the European region.[5]
On March 21, 2005 the ICANN Board represented by its President and CEO Paul Twomey entered a Registry with EURid through its Managing Director Marc Van Wesemael to complete the delegation process of the .eu ccTLD.[6]