The EU has played a significant role in policy developments on economic aspects ofInternet governance. In the late 1990s, it created the dot eu Internet Top Level Domain(TLD) which provides a means for Internet users to register their names under aEuropean label, thereby giving them a European address and identity on the Internet. This paper explores the emergent governance system for dot eu, considering three of its dimensions: the core norms and associated practices underpinning it; its structural makeup; and its operational “mechanics”. Dot eu provides an interesting case of new European transnational private governance. The system draws upon and will comply with several core practices of Internet governance developed globally, most outstandingly, private interest self-regulation and alternative dispute settlement. Nonetheless, the governance of dot eu has been “customised” by the EU. When fully operational, it will involve a part-public, though predominantly private, trans-European regulatory networkacross which the governance of dot eu will occur through a process of ‘dispersedagencification’. Here, Eurid - the private, transnational, not-for-profit, companyresponsible for the dot eu registry - will become the central node in a regulatory network also comprising the European Commission (responsible for public policy rules governing dot eu), private alternative dispute resolution companies, temporarily deployed private validation agents, private registrar companies and, finally, registrants under dot eu.
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