REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation, functioning and effectiveness of the .eu Top-Level Domain (Text with EEA relevance)
Date: 2015-12-18
Institutions: Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission
Subjects: Internet address, marketing, non-profit organisation, regulation of telecommunications

EUROPEAN 
COMMISSION 

Brussels, 18.12.2015  
COM(2015) 680 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on the implementation, functioning and effectiveness of the .eu Top-Level Domain 

(Text with EEA relevance) 

EN 

   EN 

 
 
 
 
  
 
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on the implementation, functioning and effectiveness of the .eu Top-Level Domain 

(Text with EEA relevance) 

1. 

BACKGROUND 

In April 2015, the .eu Top-Level Domain (TLD) celebrated its 9th anniversary. Over the past 
nine years, the .eu country code TLD profiled itself as an innovative and modern extension, 
very much able to catch up both with the TLDs which have been in the domain environment 
since the late nineties and to compete with the new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) that 
have been introduced in 2014. At the end of the first quarter of 2015 (Q1 2015), the .eu TLD 
was  the  sixth  largest  country  code  TLD  (ccTLD)  in  the  world1.  With  almost  four  million 
registrations, the .eu TLD has become a valued option for Europeans when choosing a domain 
name for their Internet presence. 

In line with Article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 733/2002 on the implementation of the .eu TLD, 
the Commission is required to submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council one 
year  after  the  adoption  of  the  Regulation  and  every  two  years  thereafter.  This  report  to  the 
European  Parliament  and  the  Council  concerns  the  implementation,  effectiveness  and 
functioning  of  the  .eu  TLD  over  the  past  two  years,  in  particular  during  the  period  from  1 
April 2013 to 31 March 2015. 

2. 

THE .EU LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND BASIC PRINCIPLES 

The .eu TLD was established by the following legal acts: 

–  Regulation (EC) No 733/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 April 

2002 on the implementation of the .eu Top Level Domain2 (as amended)3; 

–  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  874/2004  of  28  April  2004  laying  down  public  policy 
rules (PPR) concerning the implementation and functions of the .eu TLD and the principles 
governing registration4 (as amended)5. 

.tk is excluded due to special framework and selling model. 

1  
2             (OJ L 113, 30.4.202, p.1) 
3 

Regulation  (EC)  No  1137/2008  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  22  October  2008 
adapting  a  number  of  instruments  subject  to  the  procedure  laid  down  in  Article  251  of  the  Treaty  to 
Council Decision 1999/468/EC with regard to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny — Adaptation to 
the regulatory procedure with scrutiny — Part One (OJ L 311, 21.11.2008, p. 1). 

2 

 
 
  
 
  
                                                 
In the reporting period, Commission Regulation (EU) No 516/2015 amended Regulation (EC) 
No  874/2004  by  introducing  technical  checks  to  prevent  possible  visual  confusion  between 
registered  .eu  domain  names,  particularly  considering  the  .eu  Internationalised  Domain 
Names (IDNs) supported since December 2009, to: 

−  ensure  that  the  Registry  verifies  the  validity of  the  registration  applications  prior  to,  not 

only subsequently to, the domain name registration,  

−  allow the Registry to introduce extra characters supported by the IDNA2008 protocol and 
to  update  the  list  of  domain  names  reserved  by  the  EU  and  Iceland,  Liechtenstein  and 
Norway. 

In May 2013, in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 733/2002, the Commission published a 
call for expression of interest for the selection of the .eu TLD Registry. The call was closed on 
20 June 2013. The only application received was from EURid6. The evaluators concluded that 
the  EURid  proposal  met  the  minimum  requirements  for  each  of  the  selection  criteria.  The 
Commission Decision designating EURid as the .eu TLD Registry was published on 12 April 
20147.   

3. 

REGISTRATION AND USE OF .EU DOMAIN NAMES 

In the period covered by this report, the .eu ccTLD continued to grow steadily in line with the 
other European ccTLDs. In 2014 the .eu annual growth was exceptionally high (5.3%). The 
.eu ccTLD had a total of almost 3.9 million registrations at the end of Q1 2015, representing a 
4.3  %  net  increase  of  .eu  registrations  since  the  last  report  and  making  the  .eu  ccTLD  the 
fourth most popular in the EU.   

The  average  renewal  rate  of  .eu  domain  names  remains  80%,  which  is  a  very  healthy  rate 
compared with the industry average of 73%. 

The  domain  name  landscape  has  changed  dramatically  in  the  past  two  years  because  of  the 
introduction  of  new  gTLDs  following  the  opening  of  the  gTLD  space  by  the  Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). At the time of drafting this report, 
684  new  gTLDs  had  been  delegated.  Overall,  their  registrations  account  for  6.3  million 
domain  names,  the  top  one  being  .xyz  with  a bit  over  1  million  registrations.  However,  the 
new  gTLD  market  has  not  reached  all  expectations  because  user  demand  has  been  much 
lower than expected. At the ccTLD level the impact has been marginal so far, but for various 
reasons – including market saturation, increased competitiveness, more power at the registrar 
level  as  some  of  them  have  become  registries  and  vice  versa.  It  is  estimated  that  ccTLD 
growth will slow and might even be reversed as of 2017.  

4             (OJ L 162, 30.4.2004, p.40) 
5 

Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1654/2005  of  10  October  2005  (OJ  L  266,  11.10.2005,  p. 35), 
Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1255/2007  of  25  October  2007  (OJ  L  282  26.10.2007,  p. 16), 
Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  560/2009  of  26  June  (OJ  L  166,  27.6.2009,  p. 3),  Commission 
Regulation (EU) No 516/2015 of 26 March 2015 (OJ L 82, 27.03.2015, p.14). 

6                EURid  stands  for  European  Registry  of  Internet  Domain  Names,  a  non-profit  company,  which  had 

7  

managed the .eu TLD under contract to the European Commission 
European  Commission  Implementing  Decision  of  11  April  2014  on  the  designation  of  the  .eu  Top-
Level Domain Registry (OJ L109/41, 12.4.2014). 

3 

 
 
                                                                                                                                                         
Considering  the  historical  trend,  the  current  market  situation  and  the  prediction  for  future 
growth, the goal is to maintain a growth rate in registrations of around 4% per year.  

4. 

INTERNATIONALISED DOMAIN NAMES (IDNS) 

4.1. 

.eu IDNs 

The  introduction  of  IDNs  at  the  top  level,  is  a  matter  that  falls  within  the  competence  of 
ICANN.  On  16  November  2009,  ICANN  launched  the  IDN  ccTLD  Fast  Track  Process8  to 
facilitate  the  introduction  of  Internet  Top  Level  Domain  extensions  representing  country 
codes (e.g. .gr, .bg, .eu) using non-Latin characters (e.g. Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic and Chinese 
characters).  

Based on submissions to the Commission from Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria of their preferred 
versions of the .eu suffix, EURid submitted an application to ICANN to open registration for 
the Cyrillic and Greek versions of the .eu TLD on 5 May 2010. The Greek .ευ and Cyrillic 
.ею strings were deemed to be confusingly similar to the existing ASCII ccTLD string (.eu), 
therefore their introduction entered a lengthy evaluation process.  

While  evaluation  of  the  Cyrillic  (.ею)  string  was  successfully  completed,  the  Greek  (.ευ) 
string did not pass the technical evaluation step of the process on the grounds that it is “either 
visually identical to or visually confusable with at least three ISO 646-BV strings “.eu”, “.ev”, 
and  “.ey””.  The  Commission  instructed  EURid  to  put  on  hold  the  possible  request  of 
delegation of the Cyrillic string (.ею) until the issues linked to the Greek string (.ευ) had been 
resolved.  

In the period covered by this report Commission and EURid developed the .eu IDN high-level 
implementation plan. Submitted by EURid on September 2014, the plan outlines the approach 
to be followed when launching .eu in Greek and Cyrillc (e.g. allowing only Greek.Greek), as 
well as arrangements for managing the legacy of the current system (non-Latin.ASCII).   

On  20  January  2014  EURid,  after  agreeing  with  the  Commission  on  the  strategy  to  be 
followed, submitted a request for the re-evaluation of the .ευ string to the Extended Process 
Similarity Review Panel (EPSRP) and sent a letter to the ICANN Board to underline concerns 
about  and  point  out  inconsistencies  in  the  current  IDN  ccTLD  implementation  plan  and  the 
EPSRP guidelines published by ICANN in November 2013. The response from ICANN did 
not adequately address several of the points raised.  

The  outcome  of  the  EPSRP  evaluation  was  shared  with  EURid  on  10  October  2014  and 
posted on the ICANN site for public comment on 17 October 2014. The Panel did not find .ευ 
to be confusingly similar to the “.ev” and “.ey”, but did find it confusingly similar to “.EV” 
and  “.EY”.  The  guidelines  of  the  linguistic  panel  did  not  include  any  procedure  that  the 
linguist  panel  should  apply  in  case  a  requested  string  is  considered  confusingly  similar  to 
another string in upper-case, but not in lower-case letters.  

8 

For more information on the Fast Track Process, see: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/. 

4 

 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
In  several  meetings  with  ICANN,  Commission  and  EURid  representatives  underlined  the 
weakness  and  superficiality  of  the  overall  string  similarity  evaluation  process,  which  is 
extremely strict for the ccTLD environment, but much more liberal for the new gTLD space, 
where applications for strings like .hotel and .hotels or .car and .cars were deemed not to be 
confusingly similar and given the green light. At the time of drafting this report, the ICANN 
Board has instructed the ICANN staff and ccNSO to further review the Fast Track process to 
provide  guidance  in  cases  of  similarity  against  strings  in  upper-case,  but  not  in  lower-case 
strings. 

Multilingualism  is  rooted  in  the  European  Union  Treaties  and  encouraging,  promoting  and 
facilitating multilingualism is one of the guiding principles for the EU institutions. To that end 
making the .eu ccTLD available in other European scripts is an important policy goal.  

5. 

FUNCTIONING OF THE REGISTRY 

5.1. 

The Registry 

EURid is a Europe-wide non-profit organisation with its head office in Diegem (Belgium) and 
regional  offices  in  Stockholm,  Prague  and  Pisa.  It  comprises  two  founding  members:  DNS 
Belgium  (the  .be  registry)  and  the  Istituto  di  Informatica  e  Telematica  (the  .it  registry),  and 
eight  associate  members:  ARNES  (the  .si  registry),  CZ.NIC  (the  .cz  registry),  Business 
Europe (a confederation of 39 industry-related federations from 33 countries), ECTA Internet 
Committee  (European  Community  Trademark  Association),  EMOTA  (European  Multi-
channel  and  Online  Trade  Association),  IAB  Europe  (Interactive  Advertising  Bureau), 
CECUA (Confederation of European Computer Users) and UEAPME (European Association 
of  Craft,  Small  and  Medium-sized  Enterprises).  The  main  EURid  servers  are  located  in 
Belgium (Brussels) and in The Netherlands (Amsterdam). 

5.2. 

Relations with registrars 

By law, the .eu Registry itself does not act as registrar9. The top priority for EURid remains to 
provide  quality  service  to  its  751  accredited  registrars.  EURid  evaluates  .eu  registrar 
satisfaction on a regular basis. The latest registrar satisfaction survey for the .eu domain was 
carried out in Q4 2013 – Q1 2014. Of 176 EURid top registrars, 103 responded. 97% were 
satisfied or extremely satisfied. 

EURid continues to operate a round-the-clock support service for its registrar community.  

The  Registry  has  launched  its  own  registration  platform,  which  went  live  on  15  September 
2014 after intensive and structured communication with the .eu registrar community. With the 
new registration platform, new domain name statuses were introduced, along with changes to 
Domain  Availability  Service  (DAS),  Whois10,  Extensible  Provisioning  Protocol  (EPP)  and 
domain name expiry and renewal dates.  

9 

Article  3(4)  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  733/2002,  and  recitals  2,  3,  4  and  Article  4  of  Regulation  (EC) 
874/2004. 

10           The system that permits finding who is responsible for a domain name. 

5 

 
 
                                                 
 
5.3. 

International Relations 

In  the  reporting  period  EURid  engaged  regularly  and  proactively  in  the  Internet  ecosystem. 
That included proactive participation in the Council of European National Top Level Domain 
Registries (CENTR) meetings and workshops; the chairmanship of the CENTR-IGF working 
group which led to the successful submission of the regional organisations workshops at the 
annual IGF meetings in 2013 and 2014; participation in ICANN meetings and involvement in 
the  ccNSO  working  groups  on  IDN  Policy  Development  Process;  chairmanship  of  the 
ICANN ccNSO Strategy and Operating Plan working group since 2014; the partnership with 
UNESCO;  cooperation  with  ICANN  for  sharing  EURid  best  practices  among  Middle  East 
registries  and  registrars;  yearly  classes  on  Internet  governance  at  the  College  of  Europe  in 
Bruges and at the Scuola S. Anna in Pisa. Since March 2014, EURid representatives have also 
been  actively  involved  in  the  IANA  Stewardship  Transition  and  ICANN  Accountability 
processes.  

5.4.  Marketing and awareness activities 

Over the past two years EURid has conducted multiple marketing activities at two levels: 

−  establishing  a  sound  partnership  with  its  registrars  to  promote  the  .eu  TLD  via  the  Co-
funded  Marketing  Programme  and  other  incentive  schemes.  Under  the  Programme,  the 
Registry deposits €0.75 for every new and €0.30 for every renewed .eu domain name into 
a co-funded marketing account created for each registrar. In 2013 and 2014 respectively, 
94  and    86  proposals  of  various  kinds  were  submitted.  The  Programme  has  become 
increasingly  successful  amongst  registrars  and  has  been  imitated  by  other  registries.  In 
2013, it received the CENTR Award for best registry marketing action; 

−  direct marketing to raise awareness of .eu through dedicated online display actions and a 
regular billboard campaign at the Brussels Airport with one of EURid's top  testimonials, 
the  tennis  player  Flavia  Pennetta.  All  campaigns  land  on  the  Registry’s  dedicated 
marketing  website  (ambitionhasanaddress.eurid.eu)  where  Internet  users  can  see 
testimonials  from  companies  and  individuals  that  have  chosen  a  .eu  domain  name  to 
present themselves and/or their products online.  

During 2014  EURid launched  the .eu Web Awards to acknowledge the best .eu websites in 
five categories. The awards ceremony in Brussels on 19 November 2014 was a major success 
for profiling .eu. Given its success, the Registry is organising a second edition. 

5.5. 

Financial situation 

The  Registry  is  an  autonomous  external  organisation  but  the  Commission  scrutinises  its 
financial  situation  closely,  in  line  with  the  legal  framework  and  the  Service  Concession 
Contract.  Complete,  on-the-spot  accounting  reviews  are  performed  by  an  independent 
financial auditor. The Commission exercises its supervisory role by means of reviews of the 
auditors’  remarks,  quarterly  and  annual  financial  reports,  quarterly  progress  reports,  budget 
proposals,  and  strategy  and  marketing  plans.  Financial  matters  are  discussed  regularly  with 
the Registry at quarterly and service-level meetings. 

At  the  start  of  .eu  TLD  operations,  revenues  generated  by  the  large  number  of  domain 
registrations  were  significantly  higher  than  the  Registry's  costs.  The  consequent  annual 

6 

 
 
surpluses were transferred to the EU budget. In order to limit the surpluses and recognise the 
declining costs incurred per domain name due to the increasing volume of registrations, the 
Registry has gradually reduced the various fees for registrars. Since January 2013, in order to 
fulfil its contractual obligation to work at cost, the Registry decided to change the renewal and 
term extension fee of a domain name from €4.00 to €3.75. 

The key financial aspects of the Registry remained stable in 2013 and 2014, with the revenues 
and  costs  both  around  €13  million  a  year.  Consequently,  the  net  financial  result  was  more 
balanced than in previous years with surpluses of €535,017 and  €76,953 for accounting years 
of 2013 and 2014 respectively to the benefit of the European Union budget.  

The  Commission  scrutinised  closely  changes  in  the  Registry's  budgeted  and  actual  costs  in 
particular as regards marketing (€2.8 million in 2013 and €3.0 million in 2014)11.and human 
resources (€4.7 million in 2013 and €4.4 million in 2014). The increase in marketing costs in 
2014 is due to the high number of registrations, and therefore increased contributions to the 
co-funded  marketing  fund  and  new  awareness  initiatives  linked  to  the  fact  that  residents  of 
Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway became eligible to register .eu domains. 

5.6. 

Business continuity, resilience and quality 

5.6.1.  Business continuity 

EURid  performed  a  so-called  disaster  recovery  spot  test  on  several  components  of  its 
infrastructure. The test showed that the assumed redundancy on the telephony systems did not 
work  as  designed  and  needed  corrections.  More  specifically,  core  switching  infrastructure 
behaved  correctly  during  a  simulated  failure  and  services  remained  available,  the  front-end 
switches  that  connect  front-end  servers  to  the  firewalls  and  the  Internet  behaved  correctly 
during  a  controlled  failover,  but  some  services  became  unavailable  due  to  implementation 
assumptions  that  did  not  work  in  practice.  The  assumptions  were  corrected  and  new  tests 
showed that the failover functioned as designed.  

The entire registration software was rewritten in 2014 and went into production in September 
that  year.  An  audited  Business  Continuity  Plan  (BCP)  exercise  was  held  in  December.  The 
test was done on December 16th and was audited by PwC who concluded that "all tests related 
to the scope of the BCP Test, executed during the different timeslots, passed successfully.”  

5.6.2. 

Security 

In  September  2010,  EURid  completed  implementation  of  the  Domain  Name  Security 
Extensions  (DNSSEC)  protocol  for  the  .eu  TLD.  DNSSEC  is  a  protocol  to  verify  the 
authenticity  of  the  display  name  server  responses  (websites)  up  to  the  Internet  root  zone  in 
what is called a ‘chain of trust’. It is designed to protect Internet users from forged DNS data, 
but can only reach its full potential if all the zones in the hierarchical DNS tree are signed. A  
DNSSEC  reduction  (€0.02  discount  on  the  domain  name  fee  per  correctly  signed  domain 
name per month) was introduced in 2013 to further support the implementation of DNSSEC 
at the registrar level. 

11 These figures include the funds set aside for the Co-funded marketing Programme for the registrars. 

7 

 
 
 
 
                                                 
5.6.3.  Whois quality plan 

EURid  has  been  applying measures to counter phishing and other types of malicious online 
behaviour on a daily basis. In particular, domain names are checked for compliance with the 
eligibility  criteria  and  new  registrations  are  screened  for  suspicious  patterns  or  other 
anomalies. 

Under Article 4 of the registrar .eu accreditation agreement, registrars must ensure that each 
domain  name  holder  complies  with  the  EU  Regulations  (as  amended),  the  .eu  Registration 
Policy and the .eu Terms and Conditions, as published on the Registry website.  

Since 2013, EURid has sought to improve the quality of .eu Whois data and encouraged the 
cooperative  compliance  of  registrars  with  their  contractual  obligations.  To  that  end  the 
Registry  launched  the  Whois  Quality  Plan  project  to  check  the  Whois  database  and  fix  any 
inaccuracies. 

5.7. 

2013 Audit and Technical Verification of the Registry 

Under  its  Service  Concession  Contract  with  EURid,  the  Commission  may  arrange  for  an 
“audit  to  be  carried  out,  either  by  an  outside  body  of  its  choice,  or  by  the  Commission 
departments  themselves.  The  object  of  such  an  audit  shall  be  to  verify  the  Contractor’s 
compliance with the contract”. 

An audit was carried out by the Commission between Q3 and Q4 2013. Based on the results 
of the audit and technical verification, Commission audit services were of the opinion that the 
Registry  manager  –  EURid  Asbl/vzw  –  was  in  compliance  with  the  Service  Concession 
Contract for the organisation, administration and management of the .eu TLD.  

At the same time, the auditors identified a series of areas for improvement, including: 

−  establishing an effective conflict of interest internal policy (which EURid had in place, but 

was further refined and tightened up);  

−  evaluating  the  need  for  having  subsidiaries  in  three  other  Member  States  (this  was  an 
obligation  required  under  the  original  Service  Concession  Contract.  EURid  had  already 
committed  to  assess  the  value  of  subsidiaries  when  responding  to  the  2013  call  for 
expression of interest for the selection of the .eu TLD Registry);  

− 

introducing  a  formal  procurement  policy  (since  the  audit  EURid  has  made  its  internal 
procedure official and mandatory for expenses above a specific threshold);  

−  carrying  out  regular  reviews  of  the  reserve-building  process  (EURid  is  doing  this  on  a 

yearly basis in close cooperation with the Commission services). 

5.8. 

Legal proceedings and disputes concerning domain names 

5.8.1.  Cases before the General Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union 

General Court: none 

Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU): one preliminary ruling. 

8 

 
 
In 2011 the Brussels Court of Appeal referred the lensworld.eu case (Pie Optiek vs. Bureau 
Gevers) to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling.  

The CJEU judgment  was  rendered  on 19 July  2012. The Court of Appeal rendered its final 
decision on 3 October 2013, rejecting Pie Optiek’s claim against EURid as inadmissible. The 
court concluded that Gevers had made a mistake and ordered it to pay €70.000 damages to Pie 
Optiek, mostly court-related expenses. 

No appeal was filed; the judgment of the Brussels Court of Appeal has become definitive. 

5.8.2.  Alternative Dispute Resolution procedure 

Any disputes between .eu domain name holders or claims against .eu Registry decisions,can 
be  submitted  to  the  Alternative  Dispute  Resolution  (ADR)  provider,  which  is  the  Czech 
Arbitration Court (CAC). 

The  ADR  procedure  applies  without  prejudice  to  any  court  proceeding.  Complaints  can  be 
submitted online in any official EU language.12 

ADR against EURid concerning single character domain names  

The ADR proceeding 06814 was initiated against EURid in respect of the domain names e.eu, 
f.eu, y.eu. According to the applicable rules, a .eu domain name should contain at least two 
characters.  

The Complainant contested EURid’s rejection of the requests for registration.   

In  his  decision  of  18  November  2014,  the  ADR  panelist  rejected  the  complaint.  The 
Complainant did not appeal and the case has been closed. 

Reducing the ADR fee (agreement between Czech Arbitration Court and EURid) 

On 27 June 2012, CAC and EURid announced a special fee reduction to make the .eu ADR 
process even more accessible.  

The  €1,300  fee  for  a  basic  proceeding,  i.e.  to  dispute  one  to  five  domain  names  before  a 
single-member panel, was cut by €700 in a new fee structure valid for a period of six months 
starting from 1 July 2012. The ADR fees were cut further in 2014, with the total reduction per 
filing  of  an  ADR  complaint  rising  to  €1,000  as  of  1  January  2015.  The  €1,000  discount  is 
granted per each filed complaint irrespective of the number of domain names in dispute and 
the type of panel requested. 

5.8.3.  Other court proceedings 

In the reporting period EURid was a party in the following cases: 

Depmarc 

12 For ADR statistics, see Annex 3. 

9 

 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
Depmarc  challenged  EURid's  rejection  of  its  Sunrise13  applications  for  36  domain  names 
based  on  Dutch  trade  names.  The  Claimant  asked  the  Court  to  order  EURid  to  transfer  the 
domain names to Depmarc. The case was settled by means of a settlement agreement and on 
14 November 2013 the Court declared it closed. 

Of the 36 domain names, 30 for which there were no next applications accepted in the Sunrise 
queue, were released for general registration on 11 March 2014. The other 6 domain names 
for which the next applications in the Sunrise queue were accepted have been activated in the 
name of the applicant.  

Dotace 

The  Sunrise  application  by  the  Czech  company  Dotace  was  rejected  by  the  validator  (and 
EURid) for lack of sufficient proof of a prior right to “Dotace”. The CAC confirmed EURid's 
rejection  of  the  dotace.eu  domain  name  in  its  decision  (Case  04281).  The  domain  name 
applicant subsequently appealed before the Brussels Court of First Instance. 

When the Claimant refused to sign a settlement agreement, EURid filed a claim for vexatious 
court proceedings in order to be able to re-activate the proceedings and get a final outcome. 

In  its  judgment  of  24  October  2014,  the  Court  of  First  Instance  ruled  entirely  in  favour  of 
EURid.   

6. 

EMAS REGISTRATION AND CO2 COMPENSATION 

On 23 May 2012, EURid became the first EMAS-certified14 registry in Europe (registration 
number BE-VL-000016). The final assessment of the 9 objectives and 41 actions of the 2012-
2014 EMAS programme showed that 95% of the objectives had been achieved, including the 
main  one:  fully  compensating  for  EURid's  CO2  emissions.  In  Q1  2015,  following  annual 
audits,  EURid  started  the  process  of  renewing  its  EMAS  registration  and  extending  it  to  its 
Pisa branch. 

Since  2013,  EURid  has  validated  its  CO2  emissions  and  purchased  certified  CO2  credits  to 
compensate them. 

13 The sunrise period of domain registration is a special period during which trademark holders may preregister 
names that are the same or similar to their trademarks in order to avoid cybersquatting. This occurs prior to the 
general  launch  of  the  top-level  domain  (TLD).  In  order  to  register,  the  group  or  individual  must  be  able  to 
prove  their  prior  right  to  the  name.  The  Sunrise  Period for  .eu  was broken  into  two  phases.  The  first  phase, 
which  began  on  7  December  2005,  was  to  facilitate  applications  by  registrants  with  prior  rights  based  on 
trademarks and geographic names. The second phase began on 7 February 2006 and covered company, trade 
and  personal  names.  In  the  case  of  all  Sunrise  applications,  the  application  needed  to  be  accompanied  by 
documents  proving  the  claim  to  ownership  of  a  certain  right.  The  decision  was  then  made  by 
PricewaterhouseCoopers Belgium, which had been chosen as the validation agent by EURid. On 7 February 
2006,  the  registry  was  opened  for  company,  trade  and  personal  names.  In  the  first  15 minutes,  there  were 
27.949 total applications, and after one hour, 71.235. 

14 

The EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is a management tool for companies and other 
organisations to evaluate report and improve their environmental performance.  

10 

 
 
                                                 
 
7. 

CONCLUSIONS 

The .eu TLD model has been implemented successfully and is operating effectively. 

Over the past two years, the .eu TLD has strengthened its position as one of the biggest and 
most  popular  TLDs  in  Europe  and  the  world.  It  remains  successful  despite  the  continued, 
albeit  slower,  growth  of  the  28  Member  States  ccTLDs  and  the  increased  availability  of 
gTLDs, with which the Registry has been able to cope thanks to the quality label associated 
with the .eu TLD. 

Five years after EURid’s application for the .eu string in Greek and Cyrillic, ICANN has not 
approved the Greek .ευ on the grounds that it is confusingly similar to other strings in upper 
case.  The  Commission  has  repeatedly  urged  ICANN  to  complete  this  process  as  soon  as 
possible. It has stressed that the rules for a ‘permanent’ IDN application procedure should be 
set out so as to avoid undue delay. This is one of the public policy issues that the Commission 
will continue to raise in the Governmental Advisory Committee, which provides public policy 
advice to ICANN, as well as in other ICANN constituent bodies. 

The financial situation of the Registry remained stable during the reporting period. 

The Commission monitors the use of the ADR system provided by the CAC, which allows for 
the  protection  of  registrants'  rights  in  all  EU  languages.  Following  recommendations  by 
auditors, EURid has reduced fees to improve access to the system for individuals and SMEs 
who  have  reasons  to  believe  that  their  .eu  names  have  been  improperly  registered  by  third 
parties. 

The DNS environment has recently undergone one of the its biggest changes of the past two 
decades.  Hundreds  of  new  gTLDs  have  been  launched  in  the  market  sometimes  creating 
confusion among registrants and registrars. At the same time, the advent of social media has 
led to a dropping-off of interest in domain names, as younger Internet end users and dynamic 
new  companies  prefer  to  communicate  their  online  presence  via  the  faster  social  media 
avenues. 

The  .eu  TLD  and  its  Registry  have  shown  that  they  are  able  to  cope  very  well  with  the 
challenges to date, although the environment is expected to be even more competitive in the 
future.  The  Commission  has  a  regular  and  constructive  dialogue  with  the  Registry  to 
investigate and identify possible ways of dealing with the new DNS landscape while keeping 
the .eu space secure, reliable and worthwhile for current and future stakeholders.  

11 

 
 
 
ANNEXES 

12 

 
 
ANNEX 1: World's top TLDs as of 31 March 2015 

Source: EURid’s Quarterly Progress Report, Q1 2015 

ANNEX 2: .eu registrations by quarter 

13 

 
 
 
 
ANNEX 3: ADR complaints filed by year 

Complaints filed 

Complaints filed 

in 2013 

in 2014 

January  

February 

March 

April 

May  

June  

July  

August  

September  

October  

November  

December  

6 

5 

4 

4 

2 

7 

6 

2 

3 

6 

4 

3 

5 

5 

4 

1 

6 

5 

4 

7 

7 

7 

7 

4 

TOTAL 

52 

62 

ADR cases terminated in 2013: 57 (of which 47 complaints accepted) 

2013 

Complaint  

Complaint  

Complaint  

Settlement 

TOTAL 

Rejected 

Accepted 

defective 

January  

February 

March 

April 

May  

June  

2 

6 

3 

4 

1 

7 

6 

1 

14 

6 

3 

5 

1 

7 

8 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1 

July  

August  

September  

October  

November  

December  

5 

3 

1 

6 

2 

3 

TOTAL 

3 

47 

1 

1 

1 

4 

2 

1 

7 

5 

2 

7 

3 

3 

3 

57 

ADR cases terminated in 2014: 57 (of which 43 complaints accepted) 

2014 

Complaint 

Complaint 

Complaint  

Settlement 

TOTAL 

 Rejected 

 Accepted 

defective 

January  

February 

March 

April 

May  

June  

July  

August  

September  

October  

November  

December  

TOTAL 

1 

1 

1 

2 

5 

1 

7 

1 

5 

2 

7 

1 

5 

7 

3 

5 

5 

9 

1 

57 

6 

1 

4 

7 

1 

4 

5 

2 

3 

2 

8 

43 

1 

1 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1 

8 

15 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ANNEX 4: Total number of .eu domain names by country of registrant 

Source: EURid’s Quarterly Progress Report, Q1 2015

16 

 
 
 
ANNEX 5: .eu domains per 1,000 inhabitants 

Source: EURid’s Quarterly Progress Report, Q1 2015 

17 

 
 
 
 
ANNEX 6: IDN registrations under .eu against total .eu portfolio 

Source: EURid’s Quarterly Progress Report, Q1 2015 

18