Loomio
Sat 13 Apr 2019 7:34PM

Coop domains

SC Simon Carter Public Seen by 99

What are the chances of someone buying a coop domain as online real estate?. I own www.just.coop & want to expand by locality. Subdomains is an option but ideally I would have an all separate domain per locality, so www.justgloucester.coop www.justcheltenham.coop etc. etc. This would be a non-starter with a .com or .co.uk domain for obvious reasons, but how relaxed can I be with .coop because of the registration requirements?. I would only want to purchase as & when required.

CCC

Chris Croome (Webarchitects Co-operative) Sun 14 Apr 2019 9:24AM

There are rules for sub-domains of .coop domains, linked from the policies page, basically they can only be used by co-ops, the only example I'm aware of this is the Sheffield Student Housing Co-op who use a sub-domain of sheffield.coop.

SC

Simon Carter Sun 14 Apr 2019 10:17AM

Thanks Chris, but not really my question. Ideally I would have a unique domain per community. We know parasites buy what they believe to be valuable domains in the hope of selling them on at an inflated price. This is easy with .com .co.uk etc. My question is does it ever happen with coop domains or is the process so rigorous as to make buying a coop domain purely for speculation pretty much impossible. or simply too expensive?. I have emailed the controlling body for a definitive answer, but I thought someone here might have an answer over the weekend.

CCC

Chris Croome (Webarchitects Co-operative) Sun 14 Apr 2019 10:34AM

As far as I'm aware you can squat as many .coop domains as you want if you are a co-op, I'd suggest that this might not be the most sensible way to spend money. There are quite a lot of .coop domains using popular short words that are registered but not used, I'm not aware of there being any rules against .coop domain squatting.

G

Graham Sun 14 Apr 2019 10:46AM

I'm not aware of any cases where a profiteer has bought .coop domains speculatively. I do recall something years ago where an organisation wanted to secure/protect a namespace within .coop in the same sort of way that you outline, without having to actually register all the names (which would be very costly). My guess is that the registry would be open to considering a proposition where they were comfortable that it wasn't acting against the broad interests of other registrants, and that it was credible. At the same time, if another would be registrant wanted to register, for example, justlondon.coop and had a legitimate case to do so, I would imagine that the registry dispute resolution policy would be invoked.

SC

Simon Carter Sun 14 Apr 2019 11:16AM

That's helpful Graham. I'll let you know what the controlling body has to say. You are right about the expense aspect, but it is manageable as long as I can purchase as needed. I've got this so far (hidden thus far & far from finished)) but I just can't see it working for multiple areas. https://just.coop/?wpjf3_mr_temp_access_key=DboT1DsCTkkQPO78AfCh