CECOP, the European Confederation of Worker’s Co-operatives, Social Co-operatives
and Participative Enterprises is representing the interests of more than 1.2
million worker members and federates 83000 enterprises operating in different sectors
of the European Market. CECOP promotes the development of Workers’ Co-operatives,
Social Co-operatives, Participative Enterprises and of other enterprises involved
in the social and solidarity economy movement at local, regional, national, European
and International levels. Therefore CECOP works towards the recognition of the specific
characteristic of this type of enterprise at a European level and aims to set out
a legal, fiscal and social framework at Community level, corresponding to the needs
of the actors involved, which would facilitate their development in Europe and be
an important step towards their Europeanisation.As a supporter of a new .co-op
top level domain, I agree with the ICANN staff review which concluded that proposal
for .co-op is both technically and financially sound. I commend ICANN staff for appropriately
including .co-op among the proposed TLDs still under consideration and for noting
the broad public support for .co-op and lack of criticism associated with this proposal.
.co-op
is truly a domain name that will make a difference to Internet users across the globe.
.co-op will fulfill unmet needs on the Internet, will open up a broad range of new
domain names, will enhance competition in domain name registry services, and most
importantly, will help consumers find the businesses they trust on the Internet.
Because the word co-op/coop
is recognized across the globe to represent businesses
that are owned and operated by their members, .co-op will make a strong new addition
to existing TLDs.
To ensure that new TLDs fulfill unmet needs on the Internet,
we urge ICANN to approve .co-op as the Special Purpose TLD that will truly make a
difference on the Internet."
Indeed a co-op domain could become a highly trusted
place to do business over the Internet on a global level. I can explain in confidence,
that the establishment of a new ‘coop’ domain will on the one hand help the co-operative
movement to find its position and ‘home’ platform and on the other hand that this
domain will be recognized at international level according to the spirit of the co-operative
sector, whose members subscribe to an ethic, based on honesty, transparency, social
responsibility and altruism.
Rainer SCHLÜTER
General Secretary
Additional
support for the selection of the .coop application by:
Antonina GUARRELLA
Victoria
BARRUTIA
Sabine SPADA
Luigi MARTIGNETTI
Thomas FRÖBEL
Said el HARCHIS