It comes as no surprise that since ICANN have revealed their domain name expansion programme, an argument has ensued about the ownership of the dot eco domain extension. Environmental and green issues are topics that have been in the forefront of the news for well over a decade, with concerns that global warming and human damage to the earth are causing issues that will be irreparable. In their bids to open up the internet, new domain name extensions will be available for domain resellers and registrars. There are currently two companies bidding to own the .eco extension, one run by former presidential candidate Al Gore, and the other by Big Room, a Canadian company who campaign for green living across the world.
Big Room feel that .eco names should be registered to enforce companies to produce information about their green credentials, like how large their carbon footprint is and how much they are putting back into the environment, to create a greater transparency across the world for environmental issues. Critics say this would be hard to enforce and difficult to police; larger brands would be able to register their brand names in the .eco extension and redirect to their main sites, causing a confusion to the product and getting away from the actual idea in the first place.
The founder of Big Room, Trevor Bowden said that he has high hopes for the extension and that it should be "a badge of credibility to show that you are taking steps towards sustainability”. The company support groups such as the WWF and Greenpeace and feel that it is important for companies to be transparent about the environmental performance.
The company have pledged to give some of the money that is made in the registration of a .eco domain to a foundation that "supports sustainability in developing countries” could this be the first gTLD putting money back into the environment? And could this be the face of what is to come with new generic top level domains? We will have to wait and see.