UK firms have been scrambling to ensure their brands are registered with a .eu suffix, as registration is open to all, not just trademark holders, from today.

According to EU commissioner Viviane Reding, the .eu registry Eurid received 390,000 applications in the first 100 minutes after registration opened this morning.

"Europe and its citizens can now project their own web identity, protected by EU rules…making .eu a powerful domain name on equal footing with .com,” she said in a statement.

Firms face a first-come-first-served policy, now that any person or firm with an address in the EU can apply, and the UK is making up for its sluggish uptake of names in the sunrise period. At the time of writing, UK applications accounted for more than 170,000 of the 700,000 applications made so far across Europe.

"Firms [with trademarks or prior rights] have had about four months to get their applications in so they only have themselves to blame if they haven’t [been successful]," said Phil Turnbull of web hosting firm Hostway. ".eu has the potential to [be as] significant and authoritative an extension as.com."