By Jan Libbenga for The Register
This article has been reproduced from The Register, with permission.
The church Volle Evangelie Gemeente Rehoboth in Eersel, close to the Belgian border, was one of the first applicants for the domain name, according to the database of EURid, the European body responsible for registering .eu domain names. The church offered several hundred euros to obtain the domain name for a website where sex would be promoted "the way God wanted it", according to Chris Vermeulen of the church.
Sweden's Yellow Register On Line AB which also applied for travel.eu, music.eu, buy.eu, dvd.eu, search.eu, online.eu, sell.eu and find.eu was the first applicant for sex.eu. Third was an optician from Lilbourne, UK. Andrew Ian MacNab applied for sex.eu several times, each time changing his name slightly. In total there were 232 applications for the domain name.
The application is still pending. Trademark holders and public bodies are the first to apply for registrations during the so called sunrise period, which started last Wednesday. Holders of company or business names will have to wait until February 7.
© The Register 2005
