A proposal for the .ECO generic Top Level Domain has quietly shelved its idea following the withdrawal of its key backer, the Al Gore-backed Climate Reality Project, leaving the only consortium publicly interested in applying for the gTLD supported by Mikhail Gorbachev, reports The Guardian.The rival bidders, Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection campaign group and the Canadian company Big Room supported by the Gorbachev-founded charity Green Cross International.Meanwhile, a blog posting on the .ECO website, which is supoported by the Big Room consortium, notes that “most media outlets have been eager to frame the campaign for .ECO as a head-to-head stand-off between Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection and Gorbachev’s Green Cross International, which is a founding member of our Community Council. While the references to Gore and Gorbachev are inevitable, given their stature, the assumption that the campaign for .ECO has been a power struggle of Cold War proportions is misleading, albeit cinematic.”The Big Room consortium also has the support of Greenpeace, the David Suzuki Foundation and WWF International among several others.While this is now the only consortium that is public in its interest, ICANN’s three month application window does not open until 12 January 2012 and it will not be until after this closes that bidders for various gTLDs will be known.The Guardian report is available at www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/28/al-gore-group-eco-domain