Importance of .ASIA
If you are dealing with business customers you should pay attention to the Sunrise 2 phase where companies with registered trademarks will be able to secure their rights. Not only is Asia interesting because of its huge market potential but there is also a threat that companies will be cyber squatted. In most cases it will be expensive to win back domains from third parties if possible at all. Many companies underestimate the risk of people taking advantage of their brand names. Companies neglecting to register .ASIA names expose themselves to unnecessary risks. Third parties can register the unprotected names and infringe brands and exploit the traffic generated. The best way to protect a company’s trademark rights online in Asia is therefore to take advantage of the Sunrise 2 phase and avoid any unnecessary risks.

Rapid growth
The total number of residents in the Asia-Pacific region is estimated to be around 4 billion people accounting for 60% of the world’s population. Compared to the 389 million people in Europe, these figures give an interesting perspective on the huge potential of .ASIA. The sheer number of people combined with a rapid growth in the Internet usage of 240% within the last seven years indicates that .ASIA has the potential to become one of the major TLDs in a very short time.

Local Presence Required
Like .EU .ASIA is a restricted TLD, and will require that at least one of the contacts is residing in one of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region. A list of the 73 countries included in the ICANN Asia-Pacific Region is available at: http://www.icann.org/montreal/geo-regions-topic.htm

.ASIA time line
.ASIA will be launched over 3 sunrise periods followed by a general opening, also known as Landrush.

The original time line proposed by the DotAsia organisation has been delayed 2-3 months, and is presented here as a reference to the different phases that are planned.

You can find the full time-line and more information in our .ASIA factsheet here

.ASIA auction
To avoid lottery-like situations, the dotAsia registry has implemented a certain set of rules and regulations including Sunrise phases and the
auction model. You can read more here.

For more details keep an eye on Ascio Product Database at https://portal.ascio.com