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EURid is the not-for-profit organisation appointed by the European Commission to operate the .eu top-level Internet domain. The first initiative to establish .eu as a European top-level domain (TLD) was taken in 1999 by the European Council. Subsequently EURid was appointed in May 2003 as the operator of the .eu registry. The actual service contract was signed in October 2004.
The .eu TLD was added to the root zone of the Internet Domain Name System in March 2005. That means that, technically speaking, .eu has been in existence since then.
EURid was founded in April 2003 by the three organisations operating the national registries for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. Later the organisations operating the TLDs for the Czech Republic and for Slovenia also became members. The European Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC) joined EURid in 2006, followed by the Business Europe organisation in 2007.
Between December 7, 2005 and April 6, 2006, the .eu registry began accepting applications for domain names on a limited basis. Only those individuals and organisations holding some type of legal protection for a name within a Member State of the European Union was eligible to apply for domain names during that time. This period of phased registration is referred to as the Sunrise period.
On April 7, 2006, EURid opened the .eu TLD for general registration on a strictly first-come, first-served basis.