1292 .eus Domain Names: A Step Forward on the Internet, a Celebration on Basque Language Day

The start-up of 1,192 registered .eus domain names will go live on 3rd December, the International Basque Language Day, with a toast and in a festive atmosphere. This means that there will be 1,292 .eus domain names up and working, helping to reinforce and widen our community. Furthermore, the open phase for the domain will begin on the same day.

Iñigo Urkullu, the President of the Basque Government, will lead the ceremony, accompanied by Josu Waliño, the Managing Director of Puntueus Foundation. The ceremony will be completed by Sustrai Colina’s improvised poetry along with words from Manuel González, President of Asociación PuntoGAL, Christian Demeuré-Vallé, the Secretary of www.bzh and Gavin McCutcheon, the Director of dotScot registry. And representatives from 150 .eus domain names will be present to take part in a giant photograph.

At the end of June, 92 .eus precursors were presented and 100 domains were activated. It was an important day. This occasion – 3rd December, the International Basque language Day – is an important landmark on the domain’s development path. Basque has made considerable progress this year thanks to the Foundation and its members and, in general, Basque society.

As Josu Waliño underlined, “The .eus domain belongs to the Basque language and to Basque culture, there are no geographical limits to it. This can be seen by the websites which have registered .eus domain names in this first phase. 1,292 domain names have been registered. 95% of these are websites based in the Basque Country; the remaining 5% are outside the Basque Country, distributed world-wide. With regards to the type of websites registered, most of them belong to public institutions or private companies. There are also institutions of all types, concerned with the Basque language, culture, education, sports, individuals and others. In fact, the objective of .eus is to become the virtual mirror of the whole Basque community on the Internet.”

So websites which have had .com, .net and other top-level domain names will now become .eus. Our objective is to have more than 2,000 .eus websites by the end of this year.

Open Phase

The open phase starts at the same time as the activation of the start-up phase domain names. The priority of the start-up phase has been for associations, companies and public institutions to apply for and give their support to domain names. Now, on the other hand, the general public can register domain names, which will automatically be assigned as soon as they are requested, just as happens with other top-level domains.

There are two conditions to be able to acquire domain names. Firstly, part of the website’s contents must be in Basque, although, of course, other languages may be used too. Secondly, if there are no contents in Basque then the contents of the website must be connected with Basque culture.

Domain name registrars will set prices for .eus domain names as part of the services they offer. In other words, different domain name registrars may offer domain names at different prices. However, prices are predicted to be cheaper now than they were during the previous phase.

Durango Fair: Special Offer

The domain name is what differentiates us from the rest of the Internet: it adds value, it is a unique brand and gives each website character, identity and e-mail addresses. Puntueus Foundation is making a special offer available to all at Durango Fair. Zureizena.eus (yourname.eus) is a campaign for everyone to acquire their own domain name at half price. Puntueus Foundation is making a domain name, 10 e-mail accounts, 2 GB of space and limitless transfers available for 30 euros on 6th, 7th and 8th December at Durango Fair. This is a limited offer and an unbeatable way to celebrate Christmas!