Interest in the new .Asia domain is gaining momentum as the second phase of registration begins November 13.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Hong Kong, 12 November 2007: Strong interest in the new .Asia domain is building as demonstrated in the total number of applications for a .Asia domain received so far. On the conclusion of the first Sunrise (SR2a) period, 15,334 applications were received. The second phase of Sunrise begins November 13, 2007 and will run through January 15, 2008.
The Sunrise SR2a, or “Early Bird Sunrise”, period was reserved for actively used trademarks applied for on or before March 16, 2004. In addition to companies such as Amazon, AOL, Sony Ericsson, the International Olympic Committee and Yahoo!, domains applied for under SR2a include ebay.asia, honda.asia, nike.asia, haier.asia, iphone.asia, hyundai.asia and tata.asia.
According to Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia, “We are extremely pleased with the response. The process has also been smooth and calm. I am most excited to see that brand owners around the world are able to protect their names through our Sunrise process. If you can think of any brand, it has probably been registered.”
The first domain registered was praise.asia by HiChina, an ICANN accredited registrar in mainland China and one of the country’s leading hosting service providers with a strong commitment to fast and efficient access.
Already, there has been some competition for certain domain names. The number of domain names with more than one application totals 622.
More than 30 countries/economies in Asia participated in supplying a local presence for the applications, with Australia accounting for the largest number at 3,450 and Hong Kong close behind at 3,397. Overall, 79 countries and territories participated as applicants, with the greatest number of applications coming from the United States (4,920), the United Kingdom (1,269) and France (1,235).
A total of 60 registrars took part in registering the domains. MarkMonitor, at 2,331 applications, was the largest. According to Elisa Cooper, Director of Product Management for MarkMonitor, “The new Sunrise model employed by .Asia has not only enabled MarkMonitor’s Global 2000 customers to effectively protect their intellectual property rights, it has also significantly reduced the administrative burden typically placed upon rights holders. To date, the entire process has worked extremely well, and we are looking forward to the upcoming phases where we expect our clients to take full advantage of the additional Sunrise phases being offered by .Asia.”
Sunrise 2b and Sunrise 2c, as well as the third phase of Sunrise, will run from November 13 to January 15, 2008.
The requirements for Sunrise 2b will be similar to Sunrise 2a, except that the trademark must be applied for on or before December 6, 2006 and unlike Sunrise 2a, no prior usage of the registered mark is required. In Sunrise 2c, trademark owners will be allowed to register variations of the marks to which they hold trademark rights.
Sunrise 3 is designed for registered juristic entities such as companies, organizations, societies, cooperatives, partnerships, and collectives in the DotAsia Community to register their own entity name as a domain.
About DotAsia
The DotAsia Organisation (www.dotasia.org) is a not-for-profit community-based organisation incorporated in Hong Kong with a focused mission to operate the .Asia Registry. It is the sponsoring organization and registry operator for the .Asia sponsored generic top level domain. The DotAsia Organisation has a purposeful mandate to direct surplus proceeds to initiatives that benefit the community in the region, such as projects to bridge the digital divide and regional research development projects.
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