Investigating the Country of Origin and the Role of the .eu TLD in External Trade of European Union Member States

Abstract

The Internet, and specifically the World Wide Web, has always been a useful tool in the effort to achieve more outward-looking economies. The launch of the .eu TLD (top-level domain) in December of 2005 introduced the concept of a pan-European Internet identity that aimed to enhance the status of European citizens and businesses on the global Web. In this study, the countries of origin of websites that choose to use the .eu TLD are investigated and the reasoning behind that choice, as well as its relation to each country’s economy and external trade are discussed. Using the Web as a tool, information regarding a vast number of existing .eu websites was collected, through means of Web data extraction, and this information was analyzed and processed by a detailed algorithm that produced results concerning each website’s most probable country of origin based on a multitude of factors. This acquired knowledge was then used to investigate relations with each member-state’s presence in its local ccTLD, its GDP and its external trade revenue. The study establishes a correlation between presence in the .eu TLD and external trade that is both independent of a country’s GDP and stronger than the relation between its local ccTLD presence and external trade.