Colombia is yet another country to follow the fashion and to initiate a process of liberalization of its national extension: CO. This liberalization follows actually the reassignment for the extension of Colombia, which, from next February 07 will no longer be managed by the University of the Andes , but by an American start-up. The main advantage of this first level national extension, .CO, is obviously that “CO” is the broadly used diminutive for “Company”. Therefore it is very likely that many companies will want to buy a domain name containing their business name suffixed by. CO. In other words, .CO might become for companies what .ME is for individuals, namely a way to show to the world what they are. CO is however (dangerously) close to COM. That very proximity is also a source of danger to brand owners. Indeed, just look at what happened to Cameroonian .CM, which was liberalized last year: According to the Security Software editor McAfee, 80% of the domain names registered under .CM have been registered unlawfully. cybersquatters have based their strategy one a very common typo error: the omission of the “o” in “.COM” when the user writes a URL in his browser. And, alas, given the registration requirements announced by the new Registry, namely none, since .CO will be an extension without any restriction or required documents, we can bet that .CO will be a cybersquatters Eldorado. Nonetheless, the new .Co registry has decided to begin the liberalization with a Sunrise period, followed by a landrush in order to allow trademark owners to registrer their trademark under .CO before cybersquatters.

The opening will be done in 4 steps before total opening:

• First, as from March 1st and throughout the month of March, the holder for a .COM.CO registered before the 30/07/2008 will be able to register the equivalent of their domain name under .CO.

• Then, from April 1 to 20, a second period begins, allowing holders of registered trademarks in Colombia before July 30, 2008 to register a domain name matching the mark. If a domain is desired by many trademark holders, it will be given to the highest bidder in an auction process.

• Next, from April 26 to June 10, holders of trademark registered anywhere (not necessarily designating Colombia) before July 30, 2008 can register a domain matching their trademark. Again, if several brand owners compete on  the same domain, it will be allocated  to the highest bidder in an auction process.

• After that, from June 21 to July 13, the so called landrush will begin: Everyone will be able to purchase a domain name. However, again, if several people wish to become the holder of the same domain, it returns to the highest bidder in an auction process.

• Finally, from July 20, 2010, anyone will be able to purchase a domain name on a first-come, first served basis.

We do not know yet the price that will be charged by the Registry of Colombia during the various waves of registration. We will keep you informed as soon as this information we will be notified by the registry.

Adrien Palumbo

Tags : .co, ccTLD, liberalization

Cette entrée a été publiée le Vendredi 29 janvier2010 à 16 h 27 min, et rangée dans English. Vous pouvez suivre les réponses à cette entrée via son flux RSS 2.0. Vous pouvez laisser un commentaire, ou faire un rétrolien depuis votre site.