EURID will manage .eu top-level domain

The European Commission confirmed Thursday the appointment of a Belgian-led consortium called EURID to manage the .eu top-level domain (TLD). The .eu TLD will be up and running by the end of the year, a Commission spokesman said. It will sit alongside generic domains like .com and .info and country codes like .fr and .uk in the Internet address space. EURID emerged as the front runner to operate the domain in March. Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner responsible for Enterprise and Information Society, said that once the registry is fully operational, businesses, organizations and citizens in the European Union will be able to register their domain names within the .eu TLD. "I believe that the creation of the .eu Top Level Domain will give European citizens and businesses the possibility to acquire a European identity on the Internet," he said. The Commission will now conclude a contract with EURID and then appropriate steps will be taken with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the inclusion of .eu in the global Internet Domain Name System.