The European Registry EURid has published today an invitation to participate in an online survey about the upcoming introduction of Internationalized Domain names in the .eu namespace. It´s gonna be a huge enterprise, as EURid plans to introduce support for all 23 official languages of the European Union in one go.

The questionnaire is open to everybody and is quite short, and contains a bit of interesting information if one reads between the lines. EURid writes:

Should EURid decide to go for a sunrise for the introduction of IDNs, the sunrise will be structured through several phases depending on the kind of right claimed by the applicant. During each phase, an applicant can apply for a domain name through a EURid accredited registrar. At this stage, there is no first-come-first-served rush and the registrar can take appropriate time for entering the application as long as it is entered into the system before the deadline of the corresponding phase.

Each application is going to be checked by a competent, external party which will evaluate the validity of the rights and the compliance with the rules. If only one application passes the evaluation for a domain name, the domain name is assigned to that applicant.

Should there be more than one application complying with the rules and with valid rights, those applicants will receive a code to be used at the time registrations will be open to anyone (landrush). At that time, the first applicant with a valid code that applies for that domain name and fulfills the criteria will have the domain name assigned.

During the sunrise, there will also be the possibility to correct minor errors.

Furthermore, in case of a sunrise, the EC regulation 874/2004, setting the public policy rules concerning the implementation and functions of the .eu TLD and the principles governing registrations, will have to be amended accordingly.

The interesting bit is the one that indicates that EURid does not seem keen on repeating the horrible spectacle of the original .eu launch a couple of years ago, and that was loudly criticized by basically everybody. In particular the “there is no first-come-first-served rush” part of the sunrise description would indicate that all the legitimate applicants to a name would have a chance to get their claim reviewed and ultimately a shot at the domain of their choice. However, there is no description of how domains would then be allocated: will they be auctioned like .asia domains today? Or will EURid run a big raffle? In any case, I think a question on the people´s favourite allocation procedure would have been very useful here.

It is nevertheless very positive that the general public is given a chance to express its opinion on the subject, and I really hope a lot of people will take this opportunity. Then obviously we´ll have to pray that the European Commission does not come up with yet another one of their brilliant ideas

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