Colombian Government Accepting Bids For Registry Operation & Management of the .CO Top Level Domain

Colombia’s Ministry of Information Technology & Communications (MinTIC) has published information and documents related to the Dominio.Co project, instructions on submitting a proposal to manage and serve as the registrar for the .CO top level domain.

US based Neustar purchased the current registrar, .CO Internet S.A.S. in 2014. It appears there has been some friction between Neustar and the Colombian government. According to Colombia’s MinTIC, the contract with .CO Internet S.A.S. was for 10 years, with a 10 year renewability clause, at the discretion of the government. According to reports, Neustar tried to block Colombia’s government from opening a tender, and force the government to renew the contract with Neustar.

According to MinTIC, “Unfortunately, the company, Neustar, instead of submitting an offer based on the announcement…has decided to demand that it negotiate directly and the government extend the contract for another 10 years, including through international litigation. This would eliminate the possibility that other actors who meet the necessary conditions to operate the .CO domain can compete and present their offers in and open process, in which the best economic conditions for public assets are obtained.”

The .CO domain has 2,374,430 domain names registered as of September.  Parties interested in responding to the request for proposals may click here for materials (in Spanish).