.cm
| Introduced | 1995 |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | Camtel |
| Sponsor | Camtel |
| Intended use | Entities connected with  Cameroon
|
| Actual use | Takes advantage of misspellings of .com domains, like .co |
| Registration restrictions | Local presence not required |
| Structure | Registrations are made directly at the second level (there are also third-level registrations for government sites under gov.cm) |
| Documents | Registrar |
| Website | http://netcom.cm, http://nic.cm |
.cm is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Cameroon.
The official registrar for .cm domains is Netcom.cm, based in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon. Netcom.cm Sarl was founded in early 2008 as a partner of ANTIC, the Information Technology Regulator for Cameroon. On October 15, 2008, NETCOM.cm Sarl launched the registry service for .com.cm, .co.cm and .net.cm. The current version of .cm domains went live August 27, 2009.
In August 2006, it was reported that the .cm registry had set up a wildcard DNS record, so that all unregistered domains in this top-level domain go to a parking page with paid search links. This was likely intended to take advantage of typographical errors by users attempting to reach .com web sites.
Auctions of .cm domains have been as high as $81,000 in 2009 for what pitchmen have termed "prime real estate". However, some bloggers have noted that nothing of any real value was actually put up for auction, despite the price war. Namejet.com, the official auction site for the .CM domain registrar Netcom.cm, sold over $500,000 in .cm domain names the first day and over $2 million in the first week.
In a report published in December 2009 by McAfee, "Mapping the Mal Web - The world's riskiest domain", .cm was reportedly the riskiest domain in the world, with 36.7% of the sites posing a security risk to PCs. It is widely assumed that malicious domain programmers rely on inadvertent misspellings of well-trafficked websites ending in ".com" to lure unsuspecting users to their domains.
The .cm top-level domain is also used for domain name hacks by legitimate organizations, such as the CyanogenMod project which uses get.cm as an easily remembered URL shortener for distributing versions of its software.
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Wikipedia