CUs Grab 850 .coop URLs

Credit unions have led the way in registering for the .coop Internet URL that is reserved for cooperatives. According to the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA), at presstime some 540 credit unions had registered 850 URLs ending in .coop. Through Jan. 30, only co-operative organizations can register the .coop suffix. The NCBA itself has registered www.ncba.coop.

"As a sector, the credit unions have registered more names than any other individual sector but have registered fewer names per cooperative," a spokesperson for the NCBA told The Journal. "While CU's are registering at a faster rate than any other sector, they are reserving, on average, about 1.5 names per CU. That is lower than other sectors."

The NCBA added that it believes some "some credit unions aren't thinking as strategically as they could about the types of names that are now available under .coop-particularly about names that were never available to them under .com. They (also) need also to be thinking about simpler names that represent their FOM or the image they want to promote."

About 3,000 of the 12,000 cooperatives eligible to reserve names in advance have done so, according to NCBA. After Jan. 30, all 750,000 co-ops worldwide will be able to purchase the .coop domain names. Hazen urged cooperatives eligible for the pre-launch to do so before Jan. 30, when competition for prime names will increase dramatically.

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