It was one year ago that the DotGreen Community Inc. was forced to withdraw its application for the hotly contested .green TLD. This disappointing announcement came months before the fate of the .green TLD would be decided via ICANN’s auction process that saw companies with very deep pockets including Demand Media, TLDH (Minds+Machines) and Afilias all vying to become the official .green registry. Finally, after some backroom deals during the private auction for the .green TLD, Afilias stood as the lone and winning applicant for .green (to go along with their other color TLDs .black, .blue, .pink, .red).
Seeing .green become just another new gTLD released by a company purely looking to profit from the popular string would have been a tough pill to swallow. Myself and many others in the domain industry saw years of planning and promoting by DotGreen Community Inc. founder, Annalisa Roger in preparation for becoming the .green registry operator. Since 2007, the DotGreen Community Inc. has put forth a clear vision of how the .green namespace would focus on much more than just selling .green domains. Their model is one of promoting sustainability, furthering the green movement and partnering with environmental groups to help bring more awareness and action to environmental issues while operating the unique .green top level domain.
That’s why I was delighted when I read the story on DNJournal learning that Afilias and the DotGreen Community Inc. had partnered, giving responsibility of running the .green TLD to the DotGreen Community while Afilias would provide their back end registry services. This is a big win for both parties involved and for the greater green community! I have no doubt that Annalisa Roger and her team will be successful pioneers in the gTLD space and I look forward to an exciting launch. Congrats DotGreen Community!
