Expanding from .ie to other nations

Brendan Flowers

I own and operate a reasonably successful .ie website, specific to the Irish market. I was thinking of expanding as this is a site that could be profitable in other countries too. So my question is, as someone living in Ireland is it possible for my to own other national domains, such as a co.uk, com.au etc?

ressem

Only a handful of countries are as strict as Ireland IEDR in looking for a trademark or similar qualifier beforehand.
The .co.uk domain is sold on a first-come-first-served basis. Only if you try and register another companies trademark will there any issues.

The rules on the Australian domains are stricter.
http://www.austdomains.com.au/auda.html

tricky D

Australia, Japan, Germany, France and Ireland to a lesser extent have been the hardest to register in my experience, sometimes despite having offices in those countries and all the right documentation. Remember there might also be branding and content duplication issues.

beardybrewer

Any dirtbag can register a .com domain. In fact, I once registered dirtbagplanet.com as a joke on my friend.