The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees domain names, approved the .asia domain name last October after beginning negotiations in late 2005. Now, DotAsia Organization Limited has announced that the first net addresses ending in .asia will be assigned towards the end of 2007. The non-profit group, representing countries including China, Japan and India, will start giving names to governments and registered trademark holders in October, and follow up with companies in mid-November. Potential registrants must be based in Asia, including Australia and New Zealand. Asian internet users can now use a name reflecting their country of origin but DotAsia wants "to become a nucleus, intersection and breeding ground for internet activity and development."
Asia is already the single largest region for internet traffic, the group's website said. Citing information from Alexa Web Search, it said 13.6% of the traffic going to Yahoo, MSN and Google comes from Asia, compared with 12.5% from the United States and 7.7% from the European Union. "Will this translate into traffic to .asia domains? Not on Day 1," DotAsia said on its website. But it added that, given the Asian population, rapid economic growth, and number of internet users (about 400 million, compared with 253 million in North America), an address in Asia will be a valuable asset. DotAsia plans to treat all company applications as though they were received at the same time, and if two or more applicants want the same address, it will auction the name.
News source: CBC News
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