STRATO ANNOUNCES THE RISE OF THE .EU DOMAIN IN EUROPE

As a leading market provider of .eu domains and the first Internet Service Provider to launch Europe’s first commercial .eu domain, STRATO has always maintained an interest in the progression and uptake of .eu in Europe. As a result, STRATO today announces the results of its research into the official EURid figures concerning both the uptake of .eu and the decline of .com in Europe.

STRATO was able to research .eu domain uptake in various European countries including the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

These figures clearly reveal the significant growth in .eu domain take up versus the steep decline in the uptake of .com domains in Europe, particularly after the Landrush phase in April 2006, where registration of an .eu site became open to all interested parties.

Additionally, STRATO has discovered that it has been personally responsible for registering up to four times more .eu domains in the UK in May 2006 compared to the previous month.

STRATO beat competition to become the first international provider to receive the connection contract for a commercial .eu domain and with over two million domains, STRATO possesses a wealth of experience and expertise in the field of international domains.

EURid research figures:

• To date, there have been approximately 7.3 million .com registrations and 1.8 million .EU registrations in Europe
• The monthly growth of European .com registrations in April 2006 had climbed to 3, 582, 487. By May 2006, (after the Landrush phase) this figure had dropped to 287, 892.
• The largest uptake of the .com domain in Europe sits with Germany with a 29% uptake. This is rapidly followed by the UK (27%), France (15%), Spain (8%), Italy (6%) and the Netherlands (5%)
• The largest uptake of the .EU domain in Europe again sits with Germany with 33% uptake. This is followed by the UK (19%), Netherlands (12%), Italy (6%), France (5%), and Spain (2%)

“The figures speak for themselves. We strongly believe that the decrease in the uptake of .com in Europe since the beginning of the Landrush phase strongly indicates that the introduction of the .EU domain appears to be acting as a serious contender to the .com domain. This has certainly been a success story for .EU in Europe and we predict that this will be a continuing trend as more and more organisations and consumers choose to sign up for a .EU domain as opposed to .com.’’, said Damian Schmidt, CEO STRATO AG.

Notes to Editors

• STRATO is one of Europe’s leading web hosts and in June 2006 was recognized as Germany’s number one web host provider by the eco Association of the German Internet industry, for their ongoing focus on excellent quality and customer service
• STRATO is based in Berlin and currently has two million domains and one million customer contracts. STRATO operations currently exist across Europe, including Germany, UK, Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands
• STRATO was the first major European web host to receive the internationally coveted German Technical Control Board seal “BS7799“ which is now ISO 27001:2005. The British standard certification was awarded by the independent German testing organisation TÜV SÜD, for the reliability of its computing centres, security and data availability
• Partners of STRATO are e.g. Sun Microsystems, Cisco, AMD, Adobe and Microsoft
• Besides complete domain packages and DSL broadband access, STRATO markets high-quality servers and solutions in the area of e-commerce
• STRATO is a one hundred per cent subsidiary of freenet.de, a listed Internet and telecommunications company with over ten million customers
• STRATO benefits from the competence of its parent company and utilises existing group synergies to offer its own customers exceptional services

Information about STRATO can be found on the STRATO website at www.strato.eu / www.strato.com

For more information please contact:

Sneha Nagmoti/Richard Warner
T: 0207 388 9988
E: nagmoti@spreckley.co.uk