The new European Union web address .eu has become the continent's third most popular domain suffix after just one year of availability.
EU residents have been snapping-up the addresses at the rate of almost 300 an hour, according to the European Commission.
The only European domains still more popular than .eu are Britain's .uk and Germany's .de addresses.
The European Commission said that .eu was "still a baby", albeit it one with "many friends".
A spokesperson told a news conference that the skyrocketing popularity of .eu was unconnected with buyers' political perspectives.
Sales of .eu have "nothing to do with interest and positive attitude to the European Union", they said.
Not everyone, however, is so glowing about the new domain.
Phil Turnbull, of web hosting specialist Hostway, told IT Week that .eu's launch "was marred by a number of unscrupulous registrars."
These registrars were primarily companies who purchased .eu domains as speculative investments and, according to Mr Turnbull, they "seem to have deterred other firms from registering for the domain."
Over 700,000 of the 2.6 million .eu addresses sold in the past twelve months were actually bought during the first four hours after the launch.
