Today sees the Landrush Phase for the .eu domain. From 10:00 am today, European residents can register their own .eu domain name.

Until today the process has been limited to trademark holders and more recently people wishing to register their company, or family names in the EU.

The new domain names, thus far, have been registered on a first come first served basis, with our European counterparts being quicker than us Brit’s, in preventing their domain names from going to competitors.

NetNames, one of the accredited registrars for the .eu domain, provided these statistics.

Country        Percent
Germany       28.6
Dutch          16.6
French         11
British          9.2

NetNames estimate that there have been 330,000 applications, all vying for 235,000 .eu domains

Some high profile names have missed out on their preferred domains. NetNames said, Volkswagen, Ralph Lauren and Nestle had all tried to preregister polo.eu. While all three applied within 5 minutes of each other, VW was first and has secured the domain while Ralph Lauren came second missing out by just 3 minutes and 24 seconds.

Skype are said to have made 16 applications, using different registrars. Google put in 1 application, they felt pretty comfortable about claiming their .eu domain.

If you want to order your .eu domain today, do so here.