[Berlin] To coincide with the Berlin Internet World trade fair, Microsoft Germany has
announced the integration of the Realnames’ keyword service into the German version of Internet
Explorer 5 (IE) and into its portal MSN.de.
If you now enter the name of the most popular German soccer team “FC Bayern
München” into the address input field of the IE 5, you will immediately get
the link to the official homepage of the soccer club. Even the special
character “ü” can be used.
“We only cover company names and brand names” explained Luke Arant, Director
of Operations at RealNames Germany, in a conversation with
germany.internet.com. The service will also be tied into search engines. The
user will be able to recognize from a simple RealNames logo, whether it is
the official homepage of a particular service provider, Arant went on to
explain.
The German Internet portal web.de is said to be announcing a cooperation with
RealNames today.
Microsoft itself holds a 20 percent stake in RealNames.
