European Council of Civil Engineers
Position Paper

ECCE response regarding .EU Domain Name

The European Council of Civil Engineers (ECCE) welcomes the opportunity being provided to consider the creation of a new Internet Top Level Domain (TLD), dotEU.

Civil Engineers are under increasing pressure to apply new techniques and adopt new working practices in response to the rapid advances occurring in Information and Communications Technologies. At the same time they are subject to both the demands of our society to improve our standard of living and the consequences upon our environment.

The European Council of Civil Engineers response relates to the e-commerce aspects of the proposal rather than the proposed administration of a TLD register. ECCE believes that there is an opportunity for Europe to increase its internal market through creation of a dotEU Top Level Domain. It has been noted by some members that the dotCOM phenomenon has a certain kudos or cachet in the United Kingdom as compared with having a dotCO.UK company name. We believe that if Europe creates sufficient kudos, then dotEU would become a popular choice.

However, we would like to clarify the situation which currently exists within the sector. Civil engineering is an international profession and it may be noted that many design (consulting) engineering companies use the dotCOM format which reflects their international aspirations and markets which are not limited to Europe’s boundaries. By contrast, contracting is frequently a localised activity, relying as it does on local personnel and building materials even although the parent company may be international. It has therefore been noted that some contracting organisations will choose the national domain name to indicate the country in which they operate, whilst retaining the same parent company name throughout.

For building materials and products, a dotEU domain name could offer an opportunity to reflect EU agreed standards. It would perhaps be useful if the dotEU name could have sub-sections which indicated a ‘kite mark’ or assurance of basic accepted EU standards e.g a reflection of CE marking standards.

There are additional perceived benefits in having an EU Top Level Domain Name. If a Europe-wide system exists, such as that extant in the US, for e-mail searches (facilities such as e-mail ferret) which enable search and location of companies and individuals Europe-wide a stronger European sense of identity and cohesion might be obtained.

The role of accession countries must also be taken into account. If a company is EU ‘kite-marked’, then it can only be assumed that entry would only be open to those already possessing EU standards, not merely aspiring to them. A feeling of exclusion should be avoided and some careful thought would have to be given to how best to achieve a system of recognition of product standards – a CEN.EU name for instance? As one ECCE member has commented, it is interesting to note that the USA does not seem to bother with "USA" and merely uses ".COM" making it part of the unknown, un-quality assured run-of-the-mill Internet users. As he points out dotCOM could become discredited in the future because anyone anywhere can set up a dotCOM address, even with no knowledge or experience of what they are selling on the Internet. His suggestion is that a dotQEU could be set up as a "Quality Assured Europe".

The possible down side of an EU TLD from an e-commerce point of view is that the North American market might continue to search for products and services using dotCOM, thus overlooking opportunities and goods available within Europe.

An interesting case study relating to a European (non EU) and US company was published in the U.K. Sunday Times newspaper on 13^th February 2000 (source Danny O’Brien, joint editor of Need to Know http://www.ntk.net). At the end of 1999 the American company eToys was awarded an injunction to forbid a Swiss net art group Etoy from operating their website "etoy.com". The art group dates back to 1992 and they owned the domain name since before eToys came into being. They had made it clear they did not intend to give up their domain. "Following vocal protests from the net community (and a drop in the eToys share price)" the article states "the suit was dropped, but not before Etoy had lost their home for the winter". The writer regrets that corporations are taking to the courts and indicates that they confuse what should be a very straightforward principle. "Business", he states "would like to see the right to a domain name as an extension of trademark law. That’s never going to work". The example is given of how many taxi companies across the world could legitimately express an interest in the domain name a1taxis.com. The writer expressed the view that domain names are actually more like real estate and if traded as such the rules would be clear: first come, first served, speculation permitted, but if you let a domain lie fallow, your rights lapse and possession should always be nine-tenths of the law "no matter how humble the homeowner". A similar case occurred with a software house in the UK which took the site Prince.com and then faced a three-year confrontation before being bought out of its site by the major U.S. company Prince, a sports goods manufacturer.

In the field of construction, an ECCE member in France has reported the creation of a site www.build-online.com which describes itself as "Europe’s first business-to-business eCommerce site for the Construction industry". The site contains a report by Goldman Sachs Investment Research indicating that business-to-business (B2B) could boost long-run GDP by almost 5% in the major industrialised countries and foresaw significant efficient gains likely to come from reduction in inventory, increased product and pricing visibility and the potential to move up the value chain. Such efficiency gains can already be seen in finance, insurance and retail sectors and in the automotive industry where major companies such as Ford and DaimlerChrysler where suppliers have to operate within a closed loop system. In a fragmented industry such as construction, which nonetheless accounts for an average of 10% of GDP in Europe and which comprises 80%+ small and medium enterprises in its workforce, it is unlikely that progress will be made unless the EU provides an over-arching role as European co-ordinator and enables research and standardisation.

A dotEU TLD is only one part of a drive towards e-commerce and must not be viewed in isolation. An important challenge will be to integrate e-commerce with existing infrastructure and connecting the virtual with the physical (see below). At the present time there is a perceived over-valuation of internet-based companies that have yet to show a profit. As and when a market rectification occurs, it is important that the EU ensures a level of faith in e-commerce. Studies have shown that advances are made in research and product where there is sufficient market take-up and this will not occur in Europe unless there is sufficient user confidence in measures undertaken.

On behalf of the European Council of Civil Engineers

¹ At a construction site launch in the UK in January 2000, the company Netdecisions indicated that a study they made of 150 items purchased from EU web sites revealed: – 8% never arrived, 47% had not returns policy, 32% provided information on complaints and 62% made no mention of delivery charges.