Potentially the biggest domain news in years!
Latin American country Colombia is holder of the country code “CO”, and thus controls the corresponding .CO top level domain. After years of consideration, the .CO Registry has decided to launch unrestricted .CO domain registration during 2010, and thus take up fight directly with the dominant .COM domain.
As of July 2010, corporations as well as private persons will be able to register .CO domain names on a first-come-first-served basis. Prior to this, a number of Sunrise periods will run, including one for trademark holders.
At the moment there are appr. 84 million registrered .com domains, so the potential .CO market is significant.
Many companies are in a situation, where their preferred .com domain is taken by another company. The opportunity to register the shorter and more accessible .CO can therefore be quite attractive.
Companies which participated in the .EU domain launch, and the later .ASIA launch, will recognise the main features of the Colombian launch procedure. April 2010 will see the launch of a Sunrise round for holders of country specific or international trademarks. This will be followed by a Landrush period where anyone can apply for any amount of domain names.
During both phases, any domain applied for by two parties or more will be auctioned to the highest bidder. Final release and live registration is expected to commense July 2010.
Preregistration:
Web Solutions has launched an online pre-registration, where interested parties can submit .CO domains free of charge, and thus register their domains in our database.
As soon as the full extent of the Sunrise regulations are known, we can begin taking binding applications.
We expect that the price level of .CO domains will be roughly 50,00-60,00 Euro per year. Sunrise applicants will be required to pay a specific Sunrise fee (to be determined). The registration period can be from 1-5 years in advance.
HOW TO PREREGISTER:
You can submit your domains here, free of charge:
http://www.web-solutions.eu/co
Queries can be sent to support@web-solutions.eu
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Launch Schedule:
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Dates are provisional
February 2010 (expected)
Pre-Sunrise
Holders of existing third level .CO domains, such as .COM.CO, will be invited to convert their domain to second level. Colombia has however always been a very restricted namespace, as a result of which there are currently only 27.000 domains eligible for conversion.
It is further possible that holders of Colombian trademarks will be allowed registration during this period
April – June 2010
Global Sunrise
Registration for trademark holders. This includes any trademark registered in an internationally recognised country or territory on or before July 30, 2008, as well as registered by international registrations by organisations such as OHIM.
A complete list can be seen here: http://www.wipo.int/standards/en/pdf/03-03-01.pdf
Sunrise applicants will be required to submit comprehensive documentation, which will be validated by Deloitte.
Any domain applied for by two parties or more will be auctioned to the highest bidder.
June – July 2010
Landrush
Anyone can apply for any amount of domain names. Domains applied for by two parties or more will be auctioned to the highest bidder.
July 2010
General Availability
Final phase of the launch plan. Domain registrations become available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis.