.coop was born in ICANN's highly publicized announcement, in late 2000, of a phased release of seven new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). The event was billed as the first addition of major gTLDs to the Internet since the DNS was developed in the 1980s. The seven new gTLDs, selected from over 180 proposals, were meant in part to take the pressure off the overcrowded .com domain.
WHY A "COOP" DOMAIN IN PARTICULAR?
"coop" won a place in the sun because it was backed by a strong coalition of interest groups with staying power. ICANN values stability and reliability above all else. "coop" opened for business on January 30, 2002. Hundreds of thousands of organizations are eligible to buy xxx.coop SLDs (Second-Level Domains under the "coop" TLD).
RESTRICTED AND SPONSORED DOMAIN
"coop" is known not just as a TLD, but also as both a Restricted Domain and a Sponsored Domain (more verbosely, Restricted TLD and Sponsored TLD). Obtaining
a second-level domain name under the "coop" TLD is restricted to those who meet
specified criteria - let's just say they have to be a cooperative-type
organization (or, bi-i-ig loophole, a wholly owned subsidiary) - as opposed
to "com" and the new "info", which are available to anyone. And "coop" has a
sponsor who hammered out a satisfactory agreement with ICANN to ensure and insure the domain's stability. DotCooperation LLC (a.k.a. dotCoop and DCLLC) was created by the coalition to act as sponsor. Based in New York, it's a wholly owned subsidiary of the American NCBA (National Cooperative Business Association. Actually, InterNIC's Web site says NCBA is the sponsor, so even the experts have trouble telling the difference.
RESERVED SLDs
No one can register an SLD of "www" to become www.coop. It's reserved. (They learned their lesson after www.net and www.com.) There's a whole list of reserved SLDs, including "nic", to prevent the unscrupulous from misleading the public (see nic.net for an example of someone masquerading as / riding on the coattails of InterNIC, the old Internet Network Information Centre whose role was largely taken over by ICANN.) And the NCBA snapped up "dotcoop.coop" (say it out loud, but don't let your imagination run away with you and start substituting "g"s and "p"s!)
INFORMATION STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH
The InterNIC Web site, www.InterNIC.net, is an information and communication access point for all the new gTLDs, by way of www.NIC.coop, NIC.biz, and so on - everyone's favourite being NIC.name.) But don't be fooled by nic.net, it's not part of officialdom.
