.co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia. It is administered by .CO Internet S.A.S., a subsidiary of Neustar since 2014. , there were no registration restrictions on second-level .co domains; any individual or entity in the world can register a .co domain. .CO Internet S.A.S from Bogotá, Colombia, was appointed as the manager for the .co TLD through a public procurement process that took place in early 2009. .CO Internet received the re-delegation approval as the manager of the .co TLD by ICANN on December 9, 2009, and received formal confirmation of the request by the United States Department of Commerce on December 23, 2009. Second-level domain names When they took over administration of the .CO domain, .CO Internet S.A.S. implemented new domain policies that were more flexible than the historic ones that had been administered by the University of the Andes. The new policies were adjusted to international best practices and defined in consultation with local and international communities. With the new policies, Colombia would be able to sell second-level domain names to the world, such as widgets.co, where previously only third-level domain names were available, such as widgets.com.co. To celebrate the launch of second-level domains, the registry auctioned the first single letter .CO domain name "e.CO" during Internet Week on June 10, 2010. A video of the auction can be seen here: For a purchase price of $81,000, the winner of the auction was internet entrepreneur Lonnie Borck of B52 Media. Proceeds were donated to a charitable cause of the winner's choice. In addition to e.co, the other single letter .CO domain names that have been allocated include: , more than 1 million .CO domains had been registered by people in over 200 countries and territories worldwide. As of January 2014, that number has grown to over 1.6 million .CO domains registered. With respect to search engine optimization, Google confirmed that "it will rank .co domains appropriately if the content is globally targeted". Summary of policies since 2010 Any person or entity in the world can register .co domain names There are no domicile or burdensome documentation requirements Registration period is between 1 and 5 years, subject to renewal Registrants can easily transfer domain names .CO domains became available via the following timeline: April 1, 2010 – April 20, 2010: Sunrise A allowed registered local trademarks to apply for exact match domains. April