I've had an update from Verisign this morning about the impending .asia domain name. The key parts of the update are:
"The .ASIA sTLD (Sponsored Top-Level Domain) is one step closer to launch with ICANN's approval of the proposed agreement with DotAsia Organisation Ltd., a consortium of ccTLD registries in the Asia-Pacific region who will be the administrator of the domain. With more than 60 percent of the world's population, amounting to over 4 billion people, this extension will cover four times as many people as .EU. Much as .EU is restricted to members of the European Union, registrants for .ASIA domain names will be required to have a presence in one of the 73 countries defined by ICANN as being part of the Asia-Pacific region. This includes the up and coming economic powerhouses of India and China as well as Australia and Japan.
With four times as many people residing in the Asia-Pacific region as the European Union and early interest from domain name speculators, .ASIA could easily surpass the record registration numbers of .EU. Since the launch of .EU, more than two million domain names have been registered.
Once the contract between ICANN and .ASIA is finalized in the next few weeks, it will be another six to nine months before .ASIA is expected to launch for standard domain name registrations, followed by releases of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in the languages of member countries. While details have not been released, .ASIA is planning to have a Sunrise period allowing trademark holders to register their names."
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