Rural Cooperatives Magazine - March/April 2001
Dot What? Dot coop!
New Internet name for cooperatives provides new marketing, membership opportunities
By Paul Hazen, President and CEO, National Cooperative Business Association
A little-known international body that yields tremendous power over the Internet and e-commerce announced on November 16, 2000 its selection of .coop as one of only seven new top-level domains (TLD) that will join .com and org at the end of Internet addresses later this year.
This new dedicated Internet suffix will give co-ops a unique online identity and the opportunity to differentiate themselves in e-commerce - a privilege many other sectors sought, but failed to achieve, when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) began accepting applications for new top-level domains last fall.
In a highly competitive process, cooperatives beat out lawyers who wanted law, financial groups that wanted .fin, telephone companies that wanted mobile, and many other sector-specific groups. ICANN received 47 applications for some 180 proposed new names. The National Cooperative Business Association's (NCBA) application for .coop was among only a handful of applications by nonprofit organizations.
NCBA beat the competition because we had a solid application and strong grassroots support from cooperatives in the U.S. and overseas.
In the end, ICANN put .coop in the elite group of the well-known .com, .org, and .net, and .now, .info, .biz, .name, .museum, .aero, and .pro - the other new names.
How can we use it?
.coop presents new marketing and membership opportunities. Many co-ops already have websites under .com and org. Co-ops can choose to register their name under .coop in order to increase their Internet exposure, while keeping their .com or .org addresses. Internet addresses using different top-level domains can point to the same website.
.coop can help consumer cooperatives emphasize their values and commitment to their consumer-members, providing an edge over other sellers of goods and services. And more importantly, .coop will help consumers find the co-ops they trust online.
.coop provides new membership opportunities for agricultural and other producer cooperatives. Since the domain name emphasizes the difference between co-ops and investor-owned businesses, .coop can help attract and keep new members by promoting the member-ownership benefits of co-ops. Cooperatives can also use the new .coop TLD for their members-only site.
And even producer cooperatives that have long-relied on .com for their consumer identity may wish to begin using .coop to market the farmer-income benefits of co-ops to those consumers who value an economically vibrant rural America. More and more, co-ops are finding that their values and principles sell.
Perhaps most exciting, .coop can help increase public awareness of cooperatives. In just four letters, cooperatives have the opportunity to educate not just their own members, but the general public about what cooperatives are, why they matter and how they contribute to the global economy. As ubiquitous as the Internet has become in daily life, there is simply no question that .coop will give cooperatives greater public recognition and a competitive edge.
Of course, cooperatives don't have to use .coop. But they'll probably want to reserve that option for the future by registering for .coop later this year.
What happened to the hyphen?
NCBA applied for both .coop and .co-op. Many in the U.S. preferred the hyphen, but others who don't use the hyphen, such as those in Spanish-speaking countries, did not. In the end, ICANN rejected the hyphen in order to make the new TLO as globally applicable as possible.
Now what?
NCBA, as the new owner of the .coop TLD, is negotiating a contract with ICANN and Poptel, a worker-owned cooperative Internet service provider in the U.K. that will serve as the registry operator and registrar. We should be able to begin registration sometime this summer. For now, co-ops can go to our website at www.ncba.org and click on the blue coop button, From there, go to "How to Register," where you'll be able to put your name on an e-mail list for updates on registration details.
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