.eco – Internetblog.org.uk

Gore and Gorbachev in battle over .eco

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:00:31 +0000

The battle for the .eco top-level domain (TLD) is heating up with more politicians turned activists jumping out of the pasture and into the crossfire. We have already told you about Al Gore’s involvement in trying to secure the ultimate “green” TLD. His Dot Eco LLC has been engaged in a heated battle with Big Room, a Canadian alliance.

Now it appears that former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev is throwing his hat into the ring on the side of Big Room, by way of his own charitable organization: Green Cross International. As of yet, Mr. Gorbachev has not been as vocal about the issue as Gore, only being indirectly linked to Big Room. His organization, however, is strongly backing Big Room’s initiative.

Both organizations have promised to donate portions of the revenue from their domain sales to environment-friendly causes. The price tag for the TLD itself will be £60,738. It is not known yet how much the companies would charge per domain registration, although some early indications seem to suggest Big Room intends to make it more exclusive to certain organizations. ICANN is expected to open up the flood gates on generic top-level domains (gTLD) next year.

Source: Telegraph
Photo: Flickr

Al Gore makes appearance in .eco promo video

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:52:36 +0000

As if his starring role in An Inconvenient Truth wasn’t enough, former Vice President Al Gore appeared in a promo video today launched by Dot Eco LLC for the .eco gTLD.

The .eco domain extension is one of many to be proposed next year when the new gTLD system goes live. Two companies, Dot Eco LLC and BigRoom, are currently fighting over rights to the name.

Each has a different plan for implementing the extension. BigRoom would limit registrations to certain companies and organizations, while Dot Eco LLC would let anyone register a .eco. Both competitors feel there is a solid demand for the name among companies who want to show their earth-friendliness and eco-related non-profits.

Personally, I haven’t seen anyone jumping up and down about the prospect of registering a .eco domain. The idea is an interesting one, but I think the applications will be too limited for the name to really take off. How many people really need a .eco website?

Two Companies Fight Over Dumb TLD

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:31:09 +0000

What? from dot eco on Vimeo.

With ICANN getting ready to begin receiving applications for new TLDs, there are a lot of great ideas for new extensions, but also a lot of duds.

Chief among them is the proposed .eco TLD. Even worse, two companies seem to think it’s a good idea and are fighting for the rights to the extension.

One, Dot Eco LLC, is actually owned by Al Gore. It plans on using the former Vice President himself to market the domains and give most of the profits to charity. Under Dot Eco’s plan, anyone could register a .eco name.

Another company, BigRoom (see video above), wants to do something much different. It would only allow certain organizations to register the name. This would in effect require very high registration fees and prevent widespread adoption.

Regardless whether one of the two companies or neither gets the rights to .eco, why would anyone register such an extension in the first place? Sure, there is a small niche of “green” sites, but a few hundred registrations a year won’t cover the hundreds of thousands of pounds required to operate a TLD. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth may have been a hit, but the truth is no one will find his TLD convenient enough to bother with.

Source: EcoGeek