'.Asia' launched as Internet domain .ASIA .Asia

'.Asia' launched as Internet domain .ASIA


Bidding began Tuesday (10 th Oct 2007) for prime new pieces of Internet real estate with the launch of the ".asia" domain name, which aims to become one of the web's most desirable addresses.

The regional domain comes after the launch of the European-based .eu name last year and aims to join .com and .net as a widely used website suffix.

"The .asia domain acts like a channel or a portal, showing your commitment to the Asia market as a whole," said Edmon Chung from DotAsia, a Hong Kong-based group that won the right to set-up the domain.

"It provides an easier way to direct customers to your products.

"Our research has found that 'Asia' is one of the most searched-for terms and by having a .asia website, your ranking on Google or Yahoo will become much higher."

Prices for website addresses can range from as little as 10 dollars to several hundred dollars, depending on their desirability, Chung said.

Businesses with trademarks, governments and official bodies will be allowed to register website addresses ending with the suffix during the initial offer period. The general public will be allowed to bid from February.

Firms and global brands from both inside and outside Asia were likely to be interested, and the suffix would act as a complement to country-specific domains such as .cn for China and .jp for Japan, Chung said.

He expected tourism bodies to be some of the first groups bidding for domain names, especially those with specifically Asian slogans, such as Hong Kong's "Asia's World City" and "Malaysia. Truly Asia."

The initial bidding period will be used to try and prevent disputes between organisations and individuals vying for a specific domain name, Chung said.

If several claims are deemed equally valid, they will eventually be settled by an auction run by the not-for-profit group.

Top-level domains, which include .Asia, country-specific suffixes and around 20 generic names, such as .biz or .org, are regulated by the US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, with specific addresses sold through registrars.

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.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia
.ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia .ASIA .Asia


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Internet names for Asia launched

The .asia regional internet domain has officially opened for business, with big firms expected to grab addresses.
Governments and companies can now register interest in specific domain names, such as www.namehere.asia.
Companies will be able to register domains for which they own a trademark and governments will get a chance to earmark those on a reserved list.
The general public will get a chance to snap up their own .asia domain when the landrush starts in February 2008.
Wide reach
Work to create the .asia domain began in 2000. The DotAsia Organisation won official approval to set up the domain in mid-October 2006 and the first .asia domains should go live on the internet in March 2008.
Unlike other administrators of net domains, the DotAsia Registry plans to use an auction to determine who gets domains wanted by more than one organisation. The highest bidder will win the right to the contested name.
The geographical reach of the .asia domain extends from Australia to the Middle East. In all, 20 organisations that run country code domains have signed up to back the .asia registry.
The .asia domain is the second regional domain to go live following the European .eu suffix which started selling in April 2006. Other regional domains for Africa and Latin America are expected to follow.
Lesley Cowley, chief executive of .uk registry Nominet, said regional domains could prove to be a good option because many nations imposed stringent conditions on anyone wanting to register and use country code addresses.
Ms Cowley expected many of the initial requests for .asia domains to come from companies that need to defend the trademarks they own in the region.
"There is going to be an ever-increasing number of suffixes," she said. "Companies need to decide whether they are going to protect their registered marks in each and every one."
Despite the diversity of languages spoken in Asia, all the domains offered initially will be written using the Latin alphabet which is already used in established generic domains such as .com and country codes such as .uk.
Eventually though domains will be offered in character sets used in Asian nations but the DotAsia Organisation has given no hint about when this will begin.
At the same time that the sunrise period for .asia begins, net address overseer Icann (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is starting trials of a system that will let net addresses be written in local alphabets.
Icann will trial addresses written in Arabic, Persian, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese and Tamil.