"Internet domains are like real estate on the web. You never know what price it can fetch you later. But in the end it's illegal", the truth of the statement from the Chairman of a domain name registrar can be gauged from the fact that cyber squatters are having a field day taking the advantage of opportunities like land rush. Land rush is a phase for registration in which individuals can apply for domain names, which companies have not registered. During a land rush, domains can be procured real cheap such as even at $ 100. Post land rush, domains can even be procured but are later sold at astronomical prices.
And it's during the land rush that most attractive generic or dictionary names get picked up and later sold. For instance Diamond.com fetched its owner an astronomical sum of $7, 500, 000. Large companies are especially the targets of cyber squatters who try to register who try to register each and every possible combination as the land rush opens.
Currently .asia domain name opened for registration and will soon go into the land rush phase. Thus it is advisable to register an internet domain name critical to a brand, as soon as possible as it may so happen that a squatter may steal only to return back after a protracted legal tussle or parting with couple of millions.
The .asia regional internet domain has officially opened. Governments and companies can now register interest in specific domain names, such as www.namehere.asia.com. Companies will be able to register domains for which they own a trademark and governments will get a chance to earmark those on a reserved list. The general public will get a chance to snap up their own .asia domain when the landrush starts in February 2008.
The DotAsia Organisation started work to create the .asia domain in 2000. It got official approval to set up the domain in October 2006 and it is expected that the first .asia domains to go live on the internet in March 2008. The geographical reach of the .asia domain extends from Australia to the Middle East. The .asia domain is the second regional domain to go live following the European .eu suffix which started selling in 2006. Other regional domains for Africa and Latin America are expected to follow.
The DotAsia Organisation has plans to offer domains in character sets used in Asian nations but initially the domains will be offered in the likes of established generic domains such as .com and country codes such as .uk.
At the same time that the sunrise period for .asia begins, net address overseer ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is starting trials of a system that will let net addresses be written in local alphabets. ICANN will trial addresses written in Arabic, Persian, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Hebrew, Japanese and Tamil.
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