What is "dotcooperation"

DotCooperation LLC (dotCoop) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. based National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) created in 2001 to manage the .coop top-level domain. Midcounties Co-operative, through its subsidiary Midcounties Co-operative Domains, manages the technical operations of the .coop registry under a contract with dotCoop. In 2012, Midcounties Co-operative Domains changed hands, to become simply Domains.coop, a wholly owned subsidiary of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA).

Consistent with its vision to increase public awareness of co-ops, NCBA proposed the .coop domain to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to allow cooperatives to identify themselves as member-owned businesses on the Internet and to help consumers find the businesses they trust online.

Approved in November 2000 and publicly launched in January 2002, .coop is available only to cooperatives and co-op support organizations. DotCoop staff works with Verification Partners around the world to enforce the eligibility criteria.

Since the launch in 2002, NCBA staff continues to be directly involved in support roles within dotCoop providing important contacts in the U.S. and world co-op community.