The domain asia was introduced to the public through a comprehensive launch involving a multiphased Sunrise and Landrush process from October 9, 2007 to March 12, 2008.

It offered businesses and individuals an opportunity to own and build on any .asia domain before the TLD opened its doors to mass public registration.

The DotAsia Organisation, operator of the .Asia TLD, is governed by the administrators of a community of ccTLDs within the region including .CN (China), .IR (Iran), .JP (Japan), .KR (South Korea), .PH (Philippines), .SG (Singapore) and pan-Asia Internet / Information Technology related groups such as APTLD and APNIC.

[5]The registry has adopted the boundaries as defined by ICANN for the Asia / Australia / Pacific (AP) region as a basis for its scope of eligibility.

The 'DotAsia.com Plot' describes that the CEO of Pool.com, Richard Schreier, is accused of securing with unfair advantage several premium .Asia domain names via a number of corporations he apparently has links with.

[7] As of 15 May 2008, it is unclear whether Mr Schreier has control over the domains in question, nor whether this would breach the DotAsia contract or any laws for countries that the TLD applies to.

.Asia responded by releasing a Special Advisory clarifying the rules already in place for addressing conflicts of interest and bid rigging issues and that there is no evidence suggesting that bidders have been advantaged or disadvantaged due to their relationship or non-relationship with Pool.com.

The DotAsia Organisation, registry operator of the .Asia domain, is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization with a mandate to promote Internet development and adoption in Asia.

DotAsia is headquartered in Hong Kong and formed as an open membership consortium of national / official top-level domain authorities around the region (e.g. ".cn" in China, ".jp" in Japan, ".in" in India, ".sg" in Singapore", etc.)