Online giants including Amazon and Skype are worried about losing their names in the Internet's new marketplace - .eu domains.

The book retailer has applied no fewer than 22 times through a variety of registration agents for "amazon.eu", with internet phone company Skype applying an impressive 16 times.

Both companies are keen to get their names established before the registry is opened to the public on April 7.

And they have good reason to worry, according to EURid, the company behind the domains. "We will give the domain to the first company that applies with a valid trademark," explained spokesman Patrik Linden.

That means even big names are not necessarily safe. Linden confirmed that Amazon had now been approved as owner of its .eu namesake, but pointed out that there was a Volvo Amazon car in the 1960s, so the car manufacturer could well have a legitimate claim.

Another car manufacturer, Volkswagen, has won a battle of the brands over Polo.eu. It beat both Ralph Lauren and Nestle to the name by a matter of minutes, according to domain name management company NetNames.

While Skype is such an unusual name it can be fairly certain of no competitors, Linden confirmed that there were 17 applications for Skype.eu, with 16 of them coming from the company's Luxembourg headquarters.

Most confident is Google which, according to NetNames, has made just one application for Google.eu. Unfortunately for the search engine giant, there are another 11 applications for the name and ownership remains undecided at the moment.

The most embarrasing case, however, is PriceWaterHouseCoopers, which is actually running the authentication system for .eu domains. It failed to sent the documentation for its name in on time and now has to reapply.

As for the most applied-for name, it will come as no surprise that Sex.eu comes top with 272 applicants and counting. Hotel comes second with 135, then Hotels, Travel, Business, Jobs, Casino and Poker in that order.

There has been relatively little speculation during the "sunrise" registration period, however, with 301,000 applications for 219,000 domains - amounting to 1.37 applications per domain.

Anyone within the EU can apply for a .eu domain, but it has been the Germans that are most excited about the prospect. They account for 29 per cent of all applications, followed by the Dutch with 16.6 percent, French with 11 percent and then Britons with 9 per cent.

Least bothered is the French Carribbean island of Guadeloupe. From its 500,000 inhabitants, only two applications for a .eu domain have emerged.

The final period for companies to apply for their own domain names ends on April 7, at which point the general public is invited to grab the new domain names.

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