While the controversial debate about Britain's increasing integration with our European neighbours rages fiercely, the online community is preparing to embrace a long-awaited domain name extension, specifically designed for use by companies and individuals within the European Community.

Registrations of the new domain name (.eu) will be strictly controlled by the registry over three phases, to ensure that trademark owners are able to protect their online brands against speculators who register domains in the hope of selling them for a profit.

The .eu domain has been anticipated for many years, and is expected to see high levels of uptake. Traditionally, most businesses will register the .co.uk, .com and .net variations of their domain - the .eu extension is an important addition for UK businesses regardless of whether they have customers outside the UK.

With the rise of companies such as Google, we are seeing the emergence of a search- based digital economy, where buyers search specifically for items and are presented with thousands of potential suitors. The importance of registering multiple variations of a domain is often overlooked; NASA famously made the mistake of only registering www.nasa.gov, and to this day thousands of people mistakenly end up at un-related site www.nasa.com.

For businesses who do trade across Europe and the rest of the world, the .eu domain is an important identifier with the potential to open new channels of business. For the business whose market is closer to home, it offers an important opportunity to protect and grow their online presence.

Whatever the mood of popular opinion over Europe, it is clear that UK's online business community should join the .eu.