.co

Status:	Active
country:	International, Colombia
Manager:	Colombian Government
Registry Provider:	.CO Internet S.A.S
Date Implemented:	1991
Type:	ccTLD/gTLD
More information:

.co is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Colombia. It is managed by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC).

Delegation History

The .co ccTLD was originally delegated by IANA to the Universidad de Los Andes on December 24, 1991. In 2001, the University initiated the idea of opening the ccTLD to the global Internet community for commercial purposes, such as treating it as a de-facto generic top-level domain like ".com" targeted globally for use by companies. However, the plan was blocked by the Colombian Ministry of Communications with legal action. The objection was disputed by the University, which informed ICANN that it intended to continue to commercialize the domain name by appointing a subcontractor that would serve as the registry operator for the domain name. Mrs. Angela Montoya Holguín of the Ministry of Communications brought the issue to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), asking if the .co ccTLD had a public nature and if the Colombian government had the authority to regulate it. On December 21, 2001, Radication Number 1376 was issued stating that .co is assigned as a Colombian public interest, its administrations is a point intrinsically related to telecommunications and the Colombian government, through the Ministry of Communications, is competent to regulate its functions without prejudice.

On February 12, 2002, the university informed ICANN that its plan to commercialize .co will no longer proceed, as it was experiencing great difficulty managing the operations of the ccTLD after the Council's decisions in 2001. So, the university was planning to terminate its administrative and operational responsibilities. The University also offered its' full cooperation with ICANN in the transition of the ccTLD to a new administrator. On May 7, 2010, a resolution was issued by the Colombian Government, which states that ".co is a public asset in the telecommunications sector, the administration, maintenance and development of which shall be planned, regulated and controlled by the State, through the Ministry of Communications." Three days later, a meeting between representatives from the University, the Ministry of Communications and ICANN was conducted regarding the future administration of .co, which resulted in an agreement that the University would continue to handle operations of the domain space. However, on August 12, 2003, the Colombian Minister of Communications informed ICANN that it would take over the administration of the .co due to a directive issued by the Council State of Colombia.

On July 29, 2006, Law 1065 of 2006 was enacted by the Colombian Government stating that the Ministry of Communications is responsible for administering registration services of the .co ccTLD and it may award a 10-year contract to private parties to handle it in accordance with the law. The agreement was to be renewable for one term only. In June 2007, ICANN Root Zone Management Staff explained the requirements for the re-delegation process for the .co domain name to the Ministry of Communications and encouraged the Ministry to carry out an open and transparent bottom-up consensus-driven approach in selecting the next trustee for the .co ccTLD.

In 2009, Law 1341 revoked Law 1065 of 2006 and established the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) in its current form as the body in charge of Colombia’s public policy of telecommunications, radio, post, and information technologies. Article 18.20 assigned MinTIC the responsibility to “set the administration, maintenance and development policies for the Internet domain name under the country code corresponding to Colombia -.co-.”

MinTIC developed an international procurement process that resulted in the selection of .CO Internet S.A.S. to manage the .co top-level domain under Concession Contract 019 of 2009. .CO Internet is a company incorporated under Colombian law, wholly owned by Registry Services LLC (a company incorporated in the United States), which is in turn a wholly-owned subsidiary of Neustar, Inc (a privately held American technology company).

In December 2009, IANA completed a request to transfer management of the .co top-level domain from the University to .CO Internet.

On 25 July 2019, Congress passed Law 1978 which modified Article 18.20 of Law 1341 to provide that MinTIC would “set the administration, maintenance, and development policies, as well as manage the use of the Internet domain name under the code of the country corresponding to Colombia -.co-”. Under this authority, MinTIC embarked on a new framework that would allow it to take on a more operational role in the management of the .co top-level domain. In the same year, MinTIC initiated a public tender process to select a registry services provider for the .CO top-level domain. Many stakeholders participated in four rounds of public comments, including registry operators, registrars, technical experts, and other members of the local and international Internet communities. MinTIC analyzed, considered, and answered all of the questions and recommendations it received.

MinTIC received three applications from registry service providers during the public tender process and evaluated them according to several criteria, including the legal, financial, and technical requirements of the RFP, the applicants’ economic and technical proposals, national industry scores, and handicapped workers scores.

In late 2019, MinTIC reached out to ICANN and PTI about a potential transfer of the .co top-level domain. The parties discussed the pending RFP and the ccTLD transfer process during an initial teleconference and then again at ICANN’s Annual General Meeting in Montréal.

On 5 February 2020, MinTIC issued Resolution 161 which modified the administration of the .CO top-level domain from a “totally exclusively outsourced model” to a “partially outsourced model”. Under the new model, MinTIC assumed a more active role as the manager of the .CO domain and would then select a third party to provide domain registration services.

On 3 April 2020, MinTIC announced at a public hearing that it had selected .CO Internet to provide registry services under the 2020 Operation Contract.

On 14 July 2020, MinTIC initiated a request for the transfer of the .co top-level domain. As of 2024, MinTIC is the manager of the .co ccTLD.

Rules and Restrictions

Anyone in the world can register .co domain names, both second-level domains (example.co) and third-level domains (example.com.co). There is an exception to this rule, in which certain restricted third-level domains are marketed and made available only to local Colombian registrants. This exception includes the extensions:

• ".org.co": for non-profit entities or institutions residing in Colombia;
• ".edu.co": for educational institutions in Colombia, recognized by the National Ministry of Education;
• ".mil.co": for departments or institutions of the Colombian Armed Forces;
• ".gov.co": for Colombian government agencies or institutions.

Characters

Characters from the Latin alphabet (“a”-“z”) will be allowed. Similarly, digits (“0”-“9”) and the hyphen (“-”) can be used. The characters á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, and ü will also be permitted. Additionally, the use of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) for other alphabets are enabled, meaning the hyphen (-) should not be accepted in the 3rd and 4th positions as these are necessary for IDN registration in the 'xn--' format.

IDNs

It is possible to register IDNs under .co. The following are available:

• Spanish (Available since March 1, 2010);
• Scandinavian (Available since January 15, 2013) – Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Swedish.
• Asian (Available since April 15, 2013) – Chinese, Japanese, Korean.
• European (Available since October 15, 2013) – Portuguese, Russian, German, Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian.

Adoption Statistics and Use Cases

As of February 2021, there were nearly three million active .co domains. This represents roughly 0.8% of the internet. Sedo has reported that .co has the highest average secondary-market price, with the first being .com. Renewal rates for domains registered during the launch period, and before general availability, are very high, well above 90%. The average rate of renewal for first- and second-year renewals of domains acquired during general availability is 62%.

Taco Bell, a sizeable fast-food restaurant, chose .co upon revamping its website. The company is using ta.co, and while this URL currently redirects to tacobell.com, the shorter name is seen as a nod toward mobile users who wish to order customized meals online with as little inconvenience as possible.

Companies Using Single-Letter .Co Domains

Some of the companies and organizations using a single-letter .co domains include:

• Overstock.com- The company purchased the single-letter domain O.co for $350,000. It fully implemented the change from Overstock.com to O.co, including on the O.co stadium in Oakland. After a marketing campaign promoting the switch failed to educate consumers that the "m" in .com was no longer necessary the company returned to using Overstock.com in American markets. The rebranding began in June 2011, and was reversed in November of that year.
• Google- g.co was purchased by the company for $1.5 million to be used as an official URL shortener.
• Twitter- T.co is used by the company as its official URL shortener to prevent malware and phishing attacks.
• Amazon.com- The company purchased A.Co, Z.Co, K.Co as well as Cloud.co.
• Startup America- an organization dedicated to helping new companies to grow and create jobs in the United States registered S.co.

.Co TLD Market Share

A 2011 survey conducted by a doctorate student named Thomas Park regarding TLDs used by 1000 start-up companies that were established from 2005 o 2011 shows that 1% of start-ups are using the .co TLD. The survey showed that in 2010, .co had only 0.10% market share. Its market share increased by 0.90% in 2011 as a result of the strong marketing campaign targeting start-ups. However, it seems that .me, the open ccTLD of Montenegro, has a stronger position among start-ups with its 1.7% market share in 2011.

Country code top-level domain

International Telecommunication Union

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

Internationalized Domain Name

Top-Level Domain