.co
Encyclopedia
.co is the country code top-level domain
assigned to the Republic of Colombia. It is administered by .CO Internet S.A.S., a strategic venture formed between Arcelandia S.A. and Neustar, Inc. Arcelandia is an entity with interests in a variety of Internet-related businesses; and Neustar is a provider of global registry and managed DNS services for top-level domains.
As of July 20, 2010, any company, organization, or entrepreneur can use a .CO domain for their online branding needs. Some examples include Twitter
(t.co), AngelList (Angel.co), ENTER (Enter.co), Overstock (O.co) and Google Inc.
(g.co)
.
.CO domain names are available for registration globally through accredited registrars.
.CO Internet S.A.S was appointed as the manager for the .co TLD through a public procurement process that took place in early 2009. .CO Internet received the re-delegation approval as the manager of the .co TLD by ICANN on December 9, 2009, and received formal confirmation of the request by the United States Department of Commerce on December 23, 2009.
To celebrate the launch of second-level domains, the registry auctioned the domain name "e.CO" during Internet Week on June 10, 2010. For a purchase price of $81,000, the winner of the auction was internet entrepreneur Lonnie Borck of B52 Media. Proceeds were donated to a charitable cause of the winner's choice.
Summary of new policies:
.co domains became available via the following timeline:
April 1, 2010 – April 20, 2010: Sunrise A allowed registered Colombian trademarks to apply for exact match domains.
April 26, 2010 – June 10, 2010: Sunrise B allowed trademarks of national effect to apply for exact match domains.
June 21, 2010 – July 13, 2010: Landrush allowed anyone to apply for domain names of high commercial value.
July 20, 2010: .co domains became generally available.
As of June 2011, more 1,000,000 .CO domains had been registered by people in over 200 countries.
.co domains names and search engine optimization (SEO)
With respect to search engine optimization
, Google confirmed that "it will rank .co domains appropriately if the content is globally targeted".
delegates ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
codes as country code top-level domain
s, and on December 24, 1991, the .co top-level domain was assigned to Colombia and delegated to the Universidad de los Andes
.
In 2001 the university began to consider the possibility of marketing the domain as an alternative to the generic top-level domain
s. The government of Colombia
objected on the basis that the university, a private entity, did not have regulatory oversight of the TLD and the Minister of Communications, Angela Montoya Holguín, wrote to them requesting that they not continue. In turn the university wrote to ICANN
, rejecting the government's objections and stating their intention to appoint a subcontractor
to handle the commercialisation of the domain.
At a meeting on December 11, 2001, Holguín asked the Consultative Chamber and Civil Service of the Council of State to consider three issues:
In relation to these three issues, the meeting concluded that:
In response to the Council of State meeting, the university wrote to ICANN on 12 February 2002 stating that it had abandoned plans to commercialise the domain, and that as it could “no longer bear the administrative and operational responsibilities” it wished to discontinue its responsibility for operating the domain.
Finally, with the enactment of Law 1065 of 2006, the Ministry of Communications of Colombia initiated a public consultation process involving local and international participants, including members of the ICANN community, with the objective of defining the future of the .CO TLD. As a result of that process, through Resolution 001652 of 2008, the Ministry approved new policies that would govern the administration of the .CO TLD. A public procurement process began which resulted in the award of the administration contract to .CO Internet SAS. Finally, on February 7, 2010, the administration of the TLD was transitioned from the University of Andes to .CO Internet SAS, under the regulatory and policy supervision of the Ministry of Communications of Colombia.
On July 20, 2010, second level .co domains became available to the rest of the world on a first-come and first-served basis.
In a historic moment for Colombia and the .CO domain extension, ICANN celebrated its 39th International public meeting in Cartagena de Indias from December 5, 2010 through December 10, 2010. The meeting's host was .CO Internet S.A.S., the registry operator of the .CO domain.
In addition to more than 1000 guests from 100 countries, the meeting was introduced by Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos
, Communications Minister Diego Molano, ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, and ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom. During his opening remarks, .CO Internet CEO Juan Diego Calle hailed the meeting as one of historic proportion, marking Colombia's entry into the world stage as a new and significant player in the development of the Internet.
On February 6, 2011, .CO domains debut in a Super Bowl commercial in a partnership with GoDaddy. The commercial unveiled the new GoDaddy .CO Girl: Joan Rivers
.
s. The list of accredited registrars is available on the .CO Internet website, and as of October 2011 there are 20 accredited registrars. Some of the 20 registrars operate under multiple brands.
Country code top-level domain
A country code top-level domain is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, a sovereign state, or a dependent territory....
assigned to the Republic of Colombia. It is administered by .CO Internet S.A.S., a strategic venture formed between Arcelandia S.A. and Neustar, Inc. Arcelandia is an entity with interests in a variety of Internet-related businesses; and Neustar is a provider of global registry and managed DNS services for top-level domains.
As of July 20, 2010, any company, organization, or entrepreneur can use a .CO domain for their online branding needs. Some examples include Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
(t.co), AngelList (Angel.co), ENTER (Enter.co), Overstock (O.co) and Google Inc.
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
(g.co)
G.co
G.Co is the top-level domain URL shortcut for Google, as announced on July 18, 2011. According to Gary Briggs, Google's Vice President of consumer marketing, the .co purchase was to help users of the shortened domain "always end up at a page for a Google product or service."...
.
.CO domain names are available for registration globally through accredited registrars.
.CO Internet S.A.S was appointed as the manager for the .co TLD through a public procurement process that took place in early 2009. .CO Internet received the re-delegation approval as the manager of the .co TLD by ICANN on December 9, 2009, and received formal confirmation of the request by the United States Department of Commerce on December 23, 2009.
Second-level domain names
.CO Internet S.A.S. implemented new domain policies that are more flexible and adjusted to international best practices. These new policies, defined by the Ministry of Communications in Colombia in consultation with local and international communities, created the possibility for second-level domain names such as widgets.co.To celebrate the launch of second-level domains, the registry auctioned the domain name "e.CO" during Internet Week on June 10, 2010. For a purchase price of $81,000, the winner of the auction was internet entrepreneur Lonnie Borck of B52 Media. Proceeds were donated to a charitable cause of the winner's choice.
Summary of new policies:
- Any person or entity in the world can register .co domain names
- There are no domicile or burdensome documentation requirements
- Registration period is between 1 and 5 years, subject to renewal
- Registrants can easily transfer domain names to others
.co domains became available via the following timeline:
April 1, 2010 – April 20, 2010: Sunrise A allowed registered Colombian trademarks to apply for exact match domains.
April 26, 2010 – June 10, 2010: Sunrise B allowed trademarks of national effect to apply for exact match domains.
June 21, 2010 – July 13, 2010: Landrush allowed anyone to apply for domain names of high commercial value.
July 20, 2010: .co domains became generally available.
As of June 2011, more 1,000,000 .CO domains had been registered by people in over 200 countries.
.co domains names and search engine optimization (SEO)
With respect to search engine optimization
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
, Google confirmed that "it will rank .co domains appropriately if the content is globally targeted".
Third-level domain registrations
The third level domain registrations closely mirror the "traditional” IANA .com / .net / .org / .gov / .edu / .mil hierarchy, with the addition of a national equivalent of .name. Different from registrations directly under .co which are used to signal globally relevant interests, third level domains are used to signal locally relevant business, organizations, academic institutions, and government.- com.co – commercial
- org.co – organizations
- edu.co – educational
- gov.co – government
- net.co – network infrastructure
- mil.co – military
- nom.co – private person
History
IANAInternet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority is the entity that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System , media types, and other Internet Protocol-related symbols and numbers...
delegates ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization , to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest...
codes as country code top-level domain
Country code top-level domain
A country code top-level domain is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, a sovereign state, or a dependent territory....
s, and on December 24, 1991, the .co top-level domain was assigned to Colombia and delegated to the Universidad de los Andes
University of the Andes, Colombia
The University of the Andes , is a coeducational, nonsectarian private university located in city centre Bogotá, Colombia. Founded in 1948, the University has 9 faculties: Administration, Architecture and Design, Arts and Humanities, Sciences, Social Sciences, Law, Economics, Engineering and...
.
In 2001 the university began to consider the possibility of marketing the domain as an alternative to the generic top-level domain
Generic top-level domain
A generic top-level domain is one of the categories of top-level domains maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet....
s. The government of Colombia
Government of Colombia
The government of Colombiais a republic with separation of powers into executive, judicial and legislative branches.Its legislature has a congress,its judiciary has a supreme court, andits executive branch has a president....
objected on the basis that the university, a private entity, did not have regulatory oversight of the TLD and the Minister of Communications, Angela Montoya Holguín, wrote to them requesting that they not continue. In turn the university wrote to ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
, rejecting the government's objections and stating their intention to appoint a subcontractor
Subcontractor
A subcontractor is an individual or in many cases a business that signs a contract to perform part or all of the obligations of another's contract....
to handle the commercialisation of the domain.
At a meeting on December 11, 2001, Holguín asked the Consultative Chamber and Civil Service of the Council of State to consider three issues:
- whether the .co domain is a public resource
- if the domain is public resource, whether it is intrinsically linked with telecommunicationTelecommunicationTelecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
s - if the domain is linked with telecommunications, who should profit from its commercialisation
In relation to these three issues, the meeting concluded that:
- the .co domain, having been assigned to Colombia, is of public interest
- the administration of the domain is intrinsically related to telecommunications, and hence falls under the purview of the Ministry of Communications, with the exception of those functions assigned to the ICFESICFESICFES is an acronym for Instituto Colombiano para el Fomento de la Educación Superior . It is a Colombian organization that manages and evaluates the education and Institutes in Colombia...
by the Ministry of National Education - unless the Congress of ColombiaCongress of ColombiaThe Congress of the Republic of Colombia is the name given to Colombia's bicameral national legislature.The Congress of Colombia consists of the 102-seat Senate , and the 166-seat Chamber of Representatives ...
adopts an act allowing tax to be collected in relation to the registration of domain names, no amount can be charged for such a service
In response to the Council of State meeting, the university wrote to ICANN on 12 February 2002 stating that it had abandoned plans to commercialise the domain, and that as it could “no longer bear the administrative and operational responsibilities” it wished to discontinue its responsibility for operating the domain.
Finally, with the enactment of Law 1065 of 2006, the Ministry of Communications of Colombia initiated a public consultation process involving local and international participants, including members of the ICANN community, with the objective of defining the future of the .CO TLD. As a result of that process, through Resolution 001652 of 2008, the Ministry approved new policies that would govern the administration of the .CO TLD. A public procurement process began which resulted in the award of the administration contract to .CO Internet SAS. Finally, on February 7, 2010, the administration of the TLD was transitioned from the University of Andes to .CO Internet SAS, under the regulatory and policy supervision of the Ministry of Communications of Colombia.
On July 20, 2010, second level .co domains became available to the rest of the world on a first-come and first-served basis.
In a historic moment for Colombia and the .CO domain extension, ICANN celebrated its 39th International public meeting in Cartagena de Indias from December 5, 2010 through December 10, 2010. The meeting's host was .CO Internet S.A.S., the registry operator of the .CO domain.
In addition to more than 1000 guests from 100 countries, the meeting was introduced by Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos
Juan Manuel Santos
Juan Manuel Santos Calderón is a Colombian politician who has been the President of Colombia since 7 August 2010. He previously served as Minister of Foreign Trade, Minister of Finance, and Minister of National Defense.-Career:...
, Communications Minister Diego Molano, ICANN Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, and ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom. During his opening remarks, .CO Internet CEO Juan Diego Calle hailed the meeting as one of historic proportion, marking Colombia's entry into the world stage as a new and significant player in the development of the Internet.
On February 6, 2011, .CO domains debut in a Super Bowl commercial in a partnership with GoDaddy. The commercial unveiled the new GoDaddy .CO Girl: Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...
.
Accredited registrars
Only a small group of accredited registrars are able to sell .co domain names directly; other registrars selling .co domain names are acting as resellerReseller
A reseller is a company or individual that purchases goods or services with the intention of reselling them rather than consuming or using them. This is usually done for profit...
s. The list of accredited registrars is available on the .CO Internet website, and as of October 2011 there are 20 accredited registrars. Some of the 20 registrars operate under multiple brands.