[chaosmachine]

.co is a huge opportunity for squatters. I can't tell you how many times I've typed "site.co" instead of "site.com" because I hit enter too quickly.

For legitimate uses, it's terrible. Imagine having to say "that's co NOT com... see-oh. no M!" every time you give out your domain.

[ericd]

This is ridiculous... why is this TLD being allowed? Its main use is going to be abuse, ranging from squatting to phishing (chase.co, paypal.co, anyone?).

[SkyMarshal]

It looks like they're giving trademarks registered before 2008 first dibs, so as long as those big companies' IT departments are on the ball, they can pre-empt the squatters.

[ericd]

Yeah, but for a tax of $300. The big companies will doubtless all register theirs, but there are countless other sites that won't have the time/resources to do this.

[papachito]

> why is this TLD being allowed?

Colombia?

[ericd]

Yeah, I saw that. They should have been given .cl or something that's not a common misspelling of the de facto standard TLD.

[papachito]

.cl is for Chile.

[ericd]

.cb? Is there a rule against 3 letter country TLDs? (And, thanks for the info).

[what]

> .co is a huge opportunity for squatters.

You can get them at under a $1 per domain too if you bulk order them. But since it's a pre-order, the people who pay $300 get priority.

I don't understand why they don't auction off the obviously desirable domains, like they're doing with the 1 letter domains.

[SkyMarshal]

It sounds like any domain that has more than one pre-registrant will be auctioned.

If you're the only one who request a particular domain, you get it cheap though.

[vaksel]

i think that's $24.99 instead of $29.99 per domain if you register 21+, Not under $1 per domain.

[eli]

Doesn't seem like it'd be any better or worse than .cm

[papachito]

I just type Ctrl+Enter to append the .com, works in chrome, ff and IE at least.