Digitally Energising the Cooperative Sector: A Market Assessment of Coop, 2001

Abstract

Scope of our Analysis ’ We have been requested by Poptel to research the market for the .coop top-level domain (TLD)^ name. Poptel, in conjunction with the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) applied to the Internet Corporation o f Assigned Names and Addresses (ICANN) for the rights to sell access to the .coop TLD. This was awarded on November 16, 2000. Throughout this report we generally refer to the partnership as DC LLC (standing for .coop LLC) since this is the cooperative business which we understand is intended to be created as a subsidiary of NCBA with equity participation by Poptel and the ICA. DC LLC is intended to manage the policy with respect to .coop registration, ICANN and the digital divide fund.^ We also understand it is intended that a further company be set up to specifically create and exploit value added services. This company is referred to herein as .coop International (DCI). We understand this report is to be created primarily for Poptel as its role as a partner in DC LLC/DCI but will be provided for general use by the DC LLC/DCI partners. Our work has been focused in three areas critical to the successful worldwide launch of the .coop TLD and relevant value added services. These areas have been: 1. Designing, conducting and evaluating the results of a survey to potential customers of the .coop TLD. This survey was conducted to help determine the initial demand for the .coop TLD as well as to determine pricing o f the domain and to assist in determining relevant advertising messages to be used in the launch o f .coop. 2. General research into a number of value added services as well as the cooperative situation worldwide.