.Asia helps celebrities protect their cyber identity, as rush for domains set to begin

Indian stars Amitabh Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Kajol, Ajay Devgun, Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Sushmita Sen, Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai, Deepika Padukone and Kapil Dev have one thing in common. None of them own their domain names. Sushmita Sen is all set to legally sue a Canada-based man for having squatted on her domain name  www.sushmitasen.com. Shah Rukh Khan had to pay through his nose to buy back www.shahrukhkhan.com. Most Bollywood filmstars are unaware that their cyber identity has been hijacked or that sites in their names can be potentially misused for abusive purposes.

Cricket veteran Kapil Dev said, "Yes, I lost out on securing KapilDev.com and KapilDev.in for myself. However, KapilDev.asia will be my home on the Internet. It is indeed a pleasure to join hands with DotAsia for it is doing commendable work through its Celebrity Pioneers Program. It's time for all stars - especially athletes and cricket stars - to take their online presence seriously. With .Asia website in their name, they have a perfect platform to connect with their fans and audience."

Pop singer Shibani Kashyap added, "I own ShibaniKashyap.com but I still opted to register ShibaniKashyap.asia and Shibani.asia to secure my cyber identity and to reach out to my fans in Asia with a domain that conveys even better relevance to the region. I intend on making previews of my songs and videos available on my shibani.asia website. I really think that artists should be proactive and book their .Asia domain name before anyone else grabs it. Why pay a fortune to buy back afterwards?"

DotAsia is committed to the orderly and stable launch of the .Asia domain into the technical and social fabric of the Internet. In contrast to the mad rush to domain names which had left brand owners around the world frustrated in past launches of new top-level domains, a comprehensive "Sunrise" (priority period for Trademark owners and businesses) process was implemented for the .Asia registry. Besides providing a phased approach to protect the rights of intellectual property rights holders, an important feature of the .Asia startup process is the leaving behind of the conventional chaotic lottery-like pure first-come-first-served process, and the adoption of an auction mechanism to resolve contesting interests. During the Sunrise and Landrush phases, all applications received within the corresponding period are considered to be received at the same time. Where there is only one qualified application, it is awarded to the applicant. If there are more than one qualified application, an auction is being held between the applicants. This provides a calm, fair and logical process for everyone interested in the domain.

To date, the results have proven to be greatly successful. Over 130 countries around the world had participated in the .Asia Sunrise, submitting over 30,000 applications to date. "The results from the .Asia Sunrise are very encouraging. We are accomplishing what we had set out to do: to ensure the stable and orderly introduction of the .Asia extension into the social and technical fabric of the Internet by avoiding the chaos which had often characterized new domain launches in the past. At over 90% success rate for Sunrise applications, compared to around 50%, and zero disputes received to date compared to thousands of challenges in previous domain registry launches, we believe .Asia has set a new benchmark for the future launches of top-level domain registries," said Chung.

Furthermore, .Asia Sunrise auction results continue to demonstrate strong interest for the .Asia domain. High winning bids have exceeded US$20,000, while the average winning bid
for contested auctions have grown to US$2,000. According to statistics from data obtained by DNJournal, average domain sales in the secondary market is above US$8,500 overall, with a
median of US$2,900, whereas the median for new TLDs (i.e. .info / .biz / .mobi etc.) is at US$1,500, with an average of around US$4,000. The solid initial demand demonstrated by the
early results, coupled with a robust secondary market represents growth and investment value for .Asia domains.

This is for the very first time that that an auction system has been used to resolve contention of domain name applications during the startup of a global top level domain registry. Besides it being a fairer and more order