Mr. Xavier Buck: Born and raised in Luxembourg, I graduated in 1990 from the Luxembourg School of Management and Commerce. I then decided to continue my educational curriculum in Belgium by starting a degree in Economic Sciences from the “University Libre” of Bruxelles.

I started my professional career in the internet Industry in 1993 by creating a first multimedia company. Then, in 2000, with the help of a former colleague and friend, we set up Datacenter Luxembourg, which has become a leading hosting company in Europe. Having this strong basis in place, we founded EuroDNS two years later. EuroDNS is now one of the leading global Internet Registrars.

I am a firm believer in accessibility of Domain Names for everyone, and I have worked really early to allow customers to fulfill local requirements for registration through strong partnerships. I have also successfully lobbied for the opening of other ccTLDs in the Region.

DomainInformer: In less than six years, you have brought EuroDNS on the International level and placed the company as one of the top European registrars. How did you manage to achieve such a significant progress?

Mr. Xavier Buck: EuroDNS was founded in the wake of the .EU, and we understood from an early stage the importance of offering a one-stop shop solution to Domain users, whether individuals, trademark holders or investors. We are continuously improving the services and solutions we offer as well as the number of extensions we propose. Our relationship with suppliers, registries and Internet authorities such as ICANN is really positive and contributes to strengthen our image and position on the market.

We have offices in Europe, the USA and Asia with AsiaDNS and we serve a large variety of clients ranging from SMEs to some of the world’s largest Domain Investors and offers dedicated naming solutions to Trademark holders.

DomainInformer: What makes EuroDNS distinguishable amongst the other registrars in the industry?

Mr. Xavier Buck: EuroDNS is not only about Domain names or the .COM. As I said previously, we offer a wide range of services and extensions (+100). We are present in different countries worldwide and we are a strong one-stop shop for customers who want to consolidate their portfolio and also for the domain investors.

We largely address the community of domainers by offering special offers and services that suit their particular needs.

We have set up the Domain news site (www.domainnews.com), which is currently the number one news portal in the industry. We have also created subsidiaries in the field of domain investing, and domain auctioning.

I believe that the diversity of our offer is what makes us different and distinguishable from the other registrars.

DomainInformer: EuroDNS operates on both sides of the Atlantic. Have you noticed any differences in clients' preferences and business environments?

Mr. Xavier Buck: There is definitively a difference between the European and American business environments and also the way to deal with domain names and manage them. Americans are more business driven and investors when it comes to domain names. They also focus more on gTLDs whereas Europeans surf essentially on ccTLDs. In a way, Europeans tend to educate Americans on the country extensions and their use.

DomainInformer: What are your ambitions and plans for the future development of EuroDNS?

Mr. Xavier Buck: A number of projects have been developed and planned in different areas as I mentioned before.

To illustrate this, the website “Domain News.com”, has become the world most read news portal in the Domain Name industry; LatDNS is the new domain extension targeting the Latin American market, and we expect the website “Domainauctions.com” to have full control over the Aftermarket and the Domain Industry in the coming years. Domain invest is also a significant asset with the investment in and monetization of high value domain names.

Besides a number of important domain name acquisitions and strong partnerships have been made and EuroDNS is expected to grow rapidly.

DomainInformer: You have been chosen to be the Creative Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Luxembourg. Tell us more about this recognition?

Mr. Xavier Buck: It means a lot to me and to the team. It is the reward of many years of hard work and team effort. We are proud of what we have achieved and this recognition

DomainInformer: Domain meeting held in Paris in June was organized by EuroDNS. Could you please describe the atmosphere at the event?

Mr. Xavier Buck: The event was a great success and achieved all expectations with more than 300 attendees and some high profile speakers and sponsors from the Domain Industry.

This truly European event tackled major concerns and managed to bring the Domain Name worlds together. It also helped the Primary market understand the Aftermarket better and gave everyone the opportunity to debate major issues and hear all the conflicting opinions.

DomainInformer: What were the main topics discussed at the meeting? Will the results affect the way you do your business?

Mr. Xavier Buck: The conference covered major hot topics of worldwide reach and of interest to all participants: the impact and evolution of new TLDs; domain parking, what’s next?; the challenges faced by the Aftermarket and the primary market communities; Domain Investing; Tax optimization; Domain Economics; the presentation of new TLDs such as .MOBI and .TEL and in depth presentations of major legal issues.

See presentations here: http://www.domainermeeting.com/?page_id=289

And videos: http://www.domainnews.com/en/video-interview/domainer-meeting-paris-videos.html

DomainInformer: What is the next event in your schedule?

Mr. Xavier Buck: We are attending a few events in the coming months: the Domainer Marketer Forum in Berlin in September; the TRAFFIC meeting in Australia; the IP Summit in Brussels as a Gold Sponsor.

DomainInformer: How would you comment the ICANN decision to relax the rules on top-level domains. What will be the general impact over the domain industry?

Mr. Xavier Buck: The so-called “new TLDs” are an opportunity to comfort the customers’ understanding of existing domain names while strengthening the power of generic names. Read more.

DomainInformer: What are the basic changes that the domain industry has gone through over the years?

Mr. Xavier Buck: Over the recent years, there has been a strong shift from the Primary Market to the Aftermarket, also called Secondary market. The market has actually reached a certain maturity, and you can now find a number of different actors and areas of activities, from investors, domainers to news portals and auction platforms.

DomainInformer: How do you see the development of Domain Name industry in the future and what will be the EuroDNS’s role and contribution in it?

Mr. Xavier Buck: Regarding the primary market, we see the strongest growth in ccTLDs and we will continue to address that market. We also position ourselves on the emerging markets such as the Asian and Latin America ones.

Regarding the secondary market we are extremely well positioned to attract domainers, thanks to Luxembourg’s investor-friendly legal environment leading to an 80% tax exemption for revenue generated by domain names. Special offers and bulk features have specially been implemented for this purpose. recent creation of an