A UK company has stolen a march on Brussels by launching its own domain registration service that offers URLs with the '.eu.com' suffix.

The European Commission (EC) plans to introduce a similar service for those who want just the '.eu' tag added to the end of their names. But the scheme must first be approved by international domain regulatory body the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

London-based registry CentralNic beat the EC to it by buying the '.eu.com' suffix from a German couple who originally registered it several years ago.

CentralNic chairman Stephen Dyer said there is a pent-up demand for European names and that the EC, while keen to see an end to US dominance through the '.com' suffix, has failed to act quickly enough.

By contrast, he said, his service can provide immediate registration at about £65 for two years, although he added that most of his company's URLs are likely to be sold through ISPs and other web service firms, who will charge their own tariffs.

The EC is still debating who will regulate its '.eu' addressing system, hailed as the world's first non-national yet geographic-specific service of its kind.