.CO Internet S.A.S announced these days that interested bidders may qualify to participate in the upcoming auction for i.CO domain name until January 21,2011 at 11:59 p.m. Only qualified bidders can participate in the private online auction, which will open Thursday, February 3, 2011 and conclude at 3:15 p.m. US Eastern time on Thursday, February 10.  The i.CO name will not be part of the lot at the live public auction at DOMAINfest® Global in Santa Monica, Calif.

      The i.CO auction is one of the first in a series of exclusive single-letter auctions sponsored by the .CO Registry, and follows a very successful launch, where more than 600,000 .CO domain names were registered by registrants in 200 countries in less than six months.

      “I.CO is one of the shortest and most memorable URLs in existence,” said Juan Diego Calle, CEO and founder of .CO Internet S.A.S.  “This is an exceptionally valuable piece of Internet real estate, and the teams at SnapNames and Moniker have set up an outstanding auction process to alert and engage the right buyers.”

      The .CO Registry has allocated only a few single-letter domain names to date, several of which have enjoyed high-profile success, including Twitter’s .CO ,  used as branded URL shorteners, and Overstock’s o.CO, which is replacing Overstock.com as the company’s primary brand for all of its international websites.

      “.CO domain names are meaningful to end-users worldwide, and i.CO will be an extraordinary asset for any forward-thinking company or investor,” said Craig Snyder, General Manager of SnapNames and Moniker.  “Juan and his team have built a world-class top-level domain.”