EURid, the European Registry who manages the .eu top-level domain under contract to the European Commission, has announced that the .eu domain registrations have passed the three million mark. Since the public launch of .EU on April 7th 2006, it has grown to become the forth largest domain in Europe (after the .uk, .de, and .nl), according to reports.
In most countries of the EU, the national ccTLDs have the major share of the market with the remainder spread over .com/.net/.org/.info/.biz. As a result of this, .eu has had an uphill battle to gain a significant share of these national markets. But, with a 50% growth in 2007, the appeal for a website to emphasize its \'European identity\' rather than to be seen as being strictly national or global (\"dotcom\") appears to have been a significant enough fact to aid its rapid growth.
