BRITISH companies are gearing up to fight rivals across Europe for the right to the first European Union-wide internet domain names.

After years of negotiations between internet groups and EU member countries, the European Commission is set to go live with “.eu”. Officials in Brussels have appointed 200 registrars across Europe to allocate the new domain name, which is intended to boost e-commerce within the single market and to challenge the dominance of “.com” and “.co.uk”.

However, although the European Registry of Internet Domain Names, the organising body, is trying to keep matters civilised, experts fear costly disputes, with companies losing out to rivals or having to pay huge sums to “cybersquatters”.

During a four-month so-called sunrise period, expected to start in October, companies with registered national and EU trademarks, public bodies and those with rights acquired by use will have the exclusive right to gain the domain name equivalent to their trademark.

Because trademarks can be registered in different sectors — for example, a food company and a building company in Europe could have the same trademark — lawyers say that companies seeking to secure an internet name need to get in the queue for names now.

Lawyers also say that since “.eu” has been low-profile, companies may miss its sunrise period, only for a start-up to grab their name. Ashley Winton, of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman, said: “It will be much cheaper to secure the name now than to fight about it.”

The scheme was the idea of Romano Prodi, the Commission’s former president. Brussels believes that EU companies, which will be able to use the “.eu” name alongside existing domain names such as “.co.uk”, want to be able to identify themselves as EU businesses.

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