It is just 20 days to now until the start of the .asia landrush. I have pre-registered a few different domains and if I get any of them I think I could make some money from them down the track.
I was a little confused as to exactly how the process works because on the official .asia registry page, it looks like they are already having auctions for some names. On the same website, I couldn’t see any place to register an interest in an auction so I sent off an email to the registry.
Here is their reply:
As a brief explanation, the domain names that go to auction are ones that have received more than one application during Sunrise (and later Landrush). You must have submitted an application for the domain in the corresponding phases to participate in the auction. More specifically, there is no “premium list” of domains, but rather, the auctions are held to resolve contention for a domain during our startup process.
With regards to Landrush, you can apply for any domain name through one of our registrars. If there is only one application for your domain name, then no auction will be held. If during Landrush (Feb 20 - Mar 12, 2025) there were more than one application received for the same domain, an auction will be held only between the applicants for the domain.
The whole process seems a little weird to me and not so fair. Some people who are participating in this are going to make a lot of money if they can secure the domains they want. The site has a list of domains where the auction has been completed - camel.asia was sold for $5100.
Lists of the other domains going up for auction on February 4th don’t seem very appealing to me.
How do you get around the requirement of having to be local in one of the .asia approved countries?
I am from Australia which is on the list of approved countries, so I am ok. I think the rules state at least one person, like the technical or admin contact needs to live in Asia, so you could just use a friends address I suppose. You really need to check the rules yourself though.
A few registrars are offering a local presence service which should let non-Asia residents register .asia names by providing a local Asia contact. Usually this involves an additional fee of $5-$20/year. This type of service appears to work much as domain privacy services do.
Here is a FAQ entry which explains how non Asia-residents can satisfy the .ASIA Charter Eligibility Requirement .
http://instant-domain-names.com/asia/#14