.co |
| Introduced | 1991 |
|---|
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
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| Status | Active |
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| Registry | Universidad de los Andes |
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| Sponsor | None |
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| Intended use | Entities connected with
 Colombia |
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| Actual use | Used in Colombia; talk of capitalizing on similarity to .com and .co.uk and selling second-level registrations worldwide never materialized |
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| Registration restrictions | Limited to registrants located in Colombia; other restrictions vary by second-level subdomain |
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| Structure | Registration is only permitted at third level beneath various second-level names such as .com.co |
|---|
| Documents | Registration instructions (in Spanish) |
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| Dispute policies | UDRP |
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| Website | nic.co |
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.co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Colombia. It is administered by Universidad de los Andes.
"co" is also frequently used as a second-level domain within other country-code domains, in which registrants (usually companies) may register second-level domains of the form .co.xx, where xx is the ccTLD. Israel (.co.il), United Kingdom (.co.uk), New Zealand (.co.nz), Japan (.co.jp), South Korea (.co.kr) and Cook Islands (.co.ck) are examples. Some other country codes use "com" instead, such as Australia (.com.au), Mexico (.com.mx) and Taiwan (.com.tw); this includes Colombia itself, which uses .com.co.
Around the year 2000 when many country-code domains were being remarketed as worldwide generic domains, there was some talk of allowing second-level registrations in .co for registrants worldwide in order to capitalize on the similarity of this name to .com and to the above-noted use of "co" as a second-level domain in other country codes. However, a Court order prohibited Universidad de los Andes from doing so, and registration remains limited to third-level domains and to Colombian registrants.
Second-level domains
The second-level domain structure rather closely mirrors the "traditional IANA" .com / .net / .org / .gov / .edu / .mil hierarchy, with the addition of a national equivalent of .name
- com.co - commercial
- org.co - organizations
- edu.co - educational
- gov.co - government
- net.co - network infrastructure
- mil.co - military
- nom.co - private person
