With the Internet's .com suffix getting increasingly overcrowded, Asian domain name registries are taking the lead in securing customers for the new .biz tag, which starts operating in October.
NeuLevel--a Melbourne IT and NeuStar joint venture--last year won the right to be the master registry of domain names for the .biz suffix that promises to expand the number of available Internet addresses and offers other features.
NeuLevel has recruited 95 of the 100 or so third-party providers of domain name registration--called registrars--to offer .biz.
"I fully expect the Asian registries will be at the forefront of success in the marketplace," said Richard Tindal, NeuLevel's vice president of sales and business development.
Tindal said 27 of the registrars working with NeuLevel are headquartered in Asia, mainly in China, South Korea and Japan.
"The Asian registrars are very active in assimilating all of the technical and business requirements, and in marketing the products," he said.
NeuLevel received about 2 million applications for .biz in the first week, but it is keeping mum on the countries of origin in a bid to remain a neutral service.
The .biz suffix is available to companies and individuals who plan to use a Web site primarily for business in an attempt to stamp out cybersquatters prevalent in the .com domain. It is one of seven new suffixes giving Internet users more choices for naming Web sites and e-mail addresses as .com, .net and .org become filled up.
The .biz tag and a .info suffix for generic use were the first agreements finalised by the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees all Internet addresses.
Small and midsize businesses will probably be the first to migrate to .biz to take advantage of the extra services such as search directories, third-party company verification and secure transactions, Tindal said.
"We believe the space is more about the quality of business than quantity of domain names," he said.
Tindal expects several million .biz domains to be snapped up within the year, but did not offer exact figures.
