400,000 .CO Domain Registrations Expected in Relaunch’s First Year
NameAction visited Colombia recently to examine the registration process for the relaunched .CO recently.
Juan Diego Calle (General Manager), Eduardo Santoyo (Vice-president of Corporate affairs) and Nicolai Bezsonoff (Vice-president of Operations) of NIC Colombia showed NameAction staff around and answered their questions.
Below is a transcription of the interview, originally in Spanish, conducted on February 25, 2010.
1. How many new domain namse have been registered since the opening of .com.co and how many you expect to register in the first year?
Since the opening of domains .com.co we have registered 4,000 domains and expect to register 400,000 during the first year.
2. How was the process of registration during this stage?
We believe it was good, the peak of 3rd level domains was a pleasant surprise. On the other hand the lack of accredited registrars was not good since it increased the prices because of lack of competition. From the 9 accredited registrars, only 3 participated: GoDaddy, my.com.co and InternetX.
3. Is it possible to know the proportion of companied from Latin America, USA and Europe?
At least half of the companies were Latin and mainly Colombians.
4. Why should people register their domain .CO?
The answer is in 3 ideas we use here constantly:
I. The .CO is a global domain, with this we mean that it is distributed globally by the main net registrars.
II. It has recognition, is intuitive and globally legible.
III. The .CO has credibility.
The letters .CO are known around the world and they have a significance. In a survey of 600 people in the United States where the question was, what does .CO signifies, 75% responded “Company”.
It is not necessary to sell .CO as synonym of “Company”, it has immediate recognition. Additionally .CO means the same thing in the main languages.
Also, .CO has a lot of technical credibility since it has the support of a strong, solid and with a lot of experience company like Neustar that already operates domains like .BIZ, .Travel, etc.
There is a policy of keeping the domain clean and a technical operation top of the line.
The management policies also give credibility to the .CO since they have been adjusted to the international setting. The management is regulated by the Ministry of Communication.
5. Which is your main market?
There are 2 products:
I. Global product which is the new domain under second level .CO.
The focus is to search for small and medium companies that are starting on the Internet, at the time of registering their domain, to give priority to .CO over other extensions.
II. Product for Colombia .COM.CO.
The idea is that this extension works for local companies like dentists or others for which the .COM.CO is perfect.
6. How does the cybersquatting problem get solved?
There are various tools that help in this subject.
I. Have a group of registrars that have control points.
II. A higher price that demotivates piracy.
III. A policy that punishes false information on a domain. If there is false information the domain can be cancelled.
IV. A robust WHOIS that prevents anonymity and allows visibility for the registrant.
V. The UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy) allows to recover the domain through arbitration.
VI. Through the regulations approved by the Ministry a person that tries to damage a third party is punished with the domain’s cancellation and also allows to go to civil courts.
7. Will ICANN be in Cartagena this year?
There is interest. The proposal to have ICANN in Cartagena was already presented because it is congruent with the new era of the .CO, plus there has never been an ICANN in Colombia.
The technical evaluation of Cartagena was already made and it fulfilled all the requirements.
The above interview and translation was provided by NameAction.
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