The European Union's .eu top-level domain name was opened to the public Friday, with businesses and individuals rushing to stake their claim on the Web's newest frontier. Over 700,000 registration applications were received in the first four hours of the domain going live. The EU hopes to provide a real rival to .com after excitement over other new domains largely fizzled out.

Registrations for .eu domains run between 12 and 100 euros through over 1,500 registrars partnered with EURid, the company charged with managing the Internet's latest addition. Britons were the quickest to grab .eu names, followed by Germans and the Dutch. .eu is not intended to replace country-specific domains such as .uk or .de, but rather provide companies who operate across multiple countries a useful alternative.