Misleading or Deceptive Co ?

July 26, No Comments - Author: Simon Johnson

In Australia, we have some consumer protection legislation called the Trade Practices Act (TPA).

The Trade Practices Act “prohibits conduct by a corporation that is misleading or deceptive, or would be likely to mislead or deceive you. It makes no difference whether the business intended to mislead or deceive you—it is how the conduct of the business affected your thoughts and beliefs that matters.”

While reading The Domains post about .CO, it occurred to me that perhaps some registrars are omitting that .co is the country code for Colombia. If they are telling people that .co is for “company” (when its actually the ccTLD for Colombia) – is that misleading or deceptive conduct?

I am not a lawyer and this isn’t legal advice, but its something to think about. When I stand back and look at the conduct of registrars – I think to myself – “Will Joe or Jane average person think that its Colombia?” The answer to that is “probably not”.

If you are a registrar who has jumped on the .co bandwagon – perhaps now is a good time to get legal advice on this.

As I wrote this article, I decided to have a quick look around at a few registrars. Melbourne IT did a GREAT job of “telling it how it is”.

Smack bang on their page is this description (image left). There you go. Its up front, tells you the “place of origin” and the benefits of the good (domain). In my view, its a perfect description.

Now contrast this with Network Solutions (image right) and you’ll see what I mean. Ummmm…. no mention of Colombia there!

So here is the bottom line:

1. .CO is going to mean, whatever the public thinks it means. It’s a great extension and has been promoted by an excellent marketing campaign.

2. There are laws in many countries protecting consumers. These need to be factored into your marketing campaigns.

Over the next few years we will see more of these new TLDs come out and promoted as “the next best thing to .com”. I hope this that gives the marketing people (behind these new TLDs), something to think about. No doubt it will also provide lawyers with many billable hours.

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