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British businesses in danger as .asia opens to general public


US and German brands lead the way as British businesses lag behind

February 19, 2008; 05:33 AM

London, 19 February 2008 – >From tomorrow any resident of the DotAsia Community will be able to register their own .asia Asian domain name. In the four months since October, British brands have clamoured to prevent their .asia domain names falling into competitor or cybersquatter hands and were given first opportunity to register their trademarks. However only 30,780 applications have been filed for .asia domain names so far compared with 330,000 at the same point in the launch of the .eu domain name on 7 April 2006, meaning the majority of businesses are at high risk of losing their trademarks online once the landrush period opens to the general public.

 

British businesses have lagged behind their American and German counterparts in the applications filed so far with just over 2,000 compared with the 30,000 they filed prior to the .eu landrush.

 

Jonathan Robinson, chief operating officer, NetNames comments, “The alarm bells should be ringing for any company which has yet to secure its trademarks in .asia. As of tomorrow, there’s far less protection for companies’ trademarks and it’s open season on the .asia domain name for cybersquatters, online speculators and competitors. The demand for .asia has been understated, which simply means that many businesses are likely to miss out. As the first .asia web sites go live we’re sure to see a number of high-profile, costly disputes which could so easily have been avoided.”

 

Landrush opens on Wednesday when anyone in the world with an official presence in the DotAsia Community can submit an application for a .asia domain name. Any domain names with more than one application will then be auctioned off to the highest bidder before the .asia go-live date on 26 March 2008.

 

NetNames manages the domain name portfolios for over 30 per cent of the FTSE 100 companies and can supply a local presence .asia domain name applications.

 

About NetNames

NetNames is part of London listed Group NBT plc (LSE: NBT). Through its industry leading domain name management service, NetNames Platinum Service, the company is responsible for managing and protecting online brands for international corporates, including in excess of 30% of the FTSE 100. Following the acquisition of Ascio Technologies in January 2007 NetNames became Europe’s largest domain name management specialist.

 

NetNames is an ICANN Accredited Registrar with the ability to register domain names in all available suffixes worldwide. The company is headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Nice, Munich, Madrid, Copenhagen, Zurich and Oslo. For further information, visit www.netnames.com/platinum.


For further information please contact:

Ivan Ristic, Hotwire, tel: +44 (0)20 7608 4647

Email: [email protected]

Jon White, Hotwire, tel: +44 (0)20 7608 4677

Email: [email protected]

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