The long-awaited landrush period for top-level .asia domain is under way. It is expected huge demand for the first Internet domain name extension dedicated to the Asia-Pacific region.

DotAsia, the organization responsible for administrating the new domain name suffix “.asia”, announced that they have received a total of 266,663 applications within the first 24 hours from the opening of the Landrush period. Over 35% of the received landrush applications came from Asia, another 40% from North America and the rest 24% from Europe. About 28,000 domain names received more than one application on the first day.

Leona Chen, spokeswoman for the DotAsia, said she anticipated plenty of interest and hoped the suffix could have as significant impact in Asia as .com had globally.

To avoid the chaos, squabbles and cybersquatting that were witnessed during the launching of .eu domain, the applications for the new domain extension were divided into three time periods.

The commencement was set up on 9^th of October, 2007 for government bodies and companies with registered trademarks. The companies were enabled with the opportunity to reserve domains names that match their trademarks.

The second period began on 13^th of November with registration for those companies that have an official presence in Asia, regardless of trademarks. In accordance with their business line, the organization that had already secured registered trademarks, could then secure additional domain names.

The third and final period started on February 20^th and will finish on March 12^th , 2008 aimed at the large public. During this period anyone can apply for .asia domain name.

The leading principle of Landrush according to which domain names will be assigned is not a “first come first served” one. There is a model of equality which was developed by DotAsia and is being applied. No domain will be assigned by the registry till the end of the Landrush. No matter if you submit the application within the first second or on the last day of the Landrush period, all applications will be treated equally. The registry will accept more than one application per domain. Any domain name that has received multiple applications will be auctioned between those that have applied. Auctions will be conducted by Pool.com or Registrars like EuroDNS/AsiaDNS. Domains with one application will be directly allocated.

About two weeks after the completion of the landrush period, .Asia will come back to the “first-come-first-served” application system.

There are character restrictions for minimum of 3 letters long domain names.

Some industry experts are concerned about the proliferation of domain names suffixes. Instead of promoting brands, the business of buying domain names has focused on protecting them. This change in the nature of buying domain names is a result of the lucrative business of cybersquatting.

In addition to this concern, legitimate conflicts over domain names possession can be expected when a couple of companies apply for the same domain name. In Europe, there were 95,000 conflicting claims for domain names during the sunrise period for the .eu suffix.

DotAsia believes that through the adherence to the above mentioned rules for domain name assignment many disputes and cybersquatting will be avoided.

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