Dot Eco LLC is an organization campaigning for the .ECO top-level domain and it has the support of former presidential candidate Al Gore.
Al Gore has supported several environmental causes over the years, he has been part of an Oscar-winning documentary about climate change and he has received the Nobel Peace Prize. Now he apparently sets out to make the web greener together with Dot Eco LLC. At least, the organization claims that fifty percent of the proceeds from the .ECO TLD would be donated to environmental causes.
Do we really need this TLD? Will it make the world a better place? I doubt it, and from a domain investor’s perspective we sure do not need this new top-level domain. But I think DotEco is more about carrying a message than about launching a profitable domain extension. Dot Eco LLC wants companies to use .ECO domains for their content about eco efforts. Many companies have such content on their websites, but it’s often difficult to find, so moving the content to a DotEco domain or at least forwarding the domain to the web page would indeed make sense.
Another (disputatious) benefit Dot Eco LLC lists on its website, SupportDotEco.com:
…, the .ECO namespace will open up the possibility of getting a meaningful domain name for millions of registrants who have been “shut out” of .COM by speculative domain holders who have quite literally bought every .com name in the dictionary. Instead of paying thousands of dollars in the secondary market for a reasonable .COM, users will be able to find the same name in the .ECO namespace at a fraction of the cost.
I do not think this argument carries much weight, given that .ECO is only a good TLD if you are active in the eco industry or if you want to convince customers that your business is eco-friendly. Other domain registrants will hardly be interested in .ECO and rather opt for .net domains or other existing TLDs if the .COM domain they want has already been registered. I guess this argument is used by all proponents of the many new TLDs which have been proposed since ICANN decided to open up the TLD space, but seriously, DotCom will always remain king.
The .ECO TLD would make a good addition for a very limited group of companies and individuals only, which is why I doubt it would ever be a success. Though, considering that 50% of the proceeds from the operation of the TLD would be donated and that educational content could be made available under .ECO, I find nothing wrong with supporting this new domain extension.
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Don’t forget about another group trying to secure the .eco extension. That is http://www.doteco.info – Headed by bigroom.ca and Green Cross International, they will fight (with $$ perhaps) to try and secure the .eco extension. It will be one of the early high profile TLD decisions ICANN will have to make next year. I personally, see more of a vision for the namespace from doteco.info when comparing mission statements from both groups.
Thanks for the addition, Mike.
I read about Big Room in The Times (Online) the other day where it also says that former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev is indirectly linked to Big Room through his support of Green Cross International.
Link to the article in The Times: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6790666.ece
It will be interesting to see how the battle for .ECO will play out in the end, although I’m not sure if fighting it out will benefit any of the two competitors.