.cm Cameroon Domain

[bill]

According to my registrar the .cm extension is in Landrush from July 15, 2009 to July 31, 2009, and then will be generally available in August.

They're asking quite a bit for these domains. It's a bit too rich for my blood in this economy. Anybody going to take the plunge? I'd be interested to secure my trademarked terms, but not at this price.

[dailypress]

type-in traffic potential, although im assuming many people now know what parked pages are and immediately close the browser once they see a page full of spammy links.

And arent most of the .cm's already owned by the famous guy in Vancouver?
[money.cnn.com...]

[bill]

He doesn't own them. He had a deal to redirect type-in traffic from unregistered names. That must have been quite lucrative.

Interesting article.

[dailypress]

[encirca.com...]

First-come, first-served: second-level .cm domains, such as encirca.cm. On 1st August 2009, 0:00:01 UTC the open registration starts. At this point .cm domains can be registered on a first come first served basis with a minimum registration period of one year.
Pricing for open registrations will be $110/year.
Open Registrations are not yet being accepted

$110/year?

[jmccormac]

Country Code Top Level Domain being repurposed as a junk extension.

Regards...jmcc

[bill]

It doesn't look as thought these 2nd level .cm domains are available yet. I've looked at several registrars and none of them are yet active. Hopefully there will be some that charge less than $110/year.

[tim222]

Typosquatters will like this extension. It's easy to accidentally type ".cm" instead of ".com" Of course the traffic has to be worth more than $110 per year. A typical typosquat name probably doesn't make that kind of revenue.

[Leosghost]

Personally ..I always though it ( the .cm ) would get swamped by the pron industry ( phonetics )..until / if the "tripleX" went live ..

I'll be surprised if that isnt still the case..

[bill]

Well, it appears they were unable to get the landrush operational. They still aren't available.

From the Cameroon Domain Name Registry [netcom.cm]:

Dear Registrars,

Currently the Cameroon internet connection is facing technical difficulties.

After applying a security update to the .CM registry server, the root name servers failed to get access to the zone file. The technical team of CAMTEL is currently working on the issue to solve the problem.

Domains which were applied for during the sunrise period will be connected once the Trademark Certificates have been validated. Due to the overwhelming success of the introduction of the .cm top-level domain, we would like to ask for some patience. The review process will be finished soon and we are sure that we can connect the domains as soon as our technical problems are fixed.

The open registration for .CM domains will be suspended till the issue has been solved.

We apologise for the inconvience and we will keep you updated.

[dailypress]

thanks for the update..

[bill]

This wasn't a very smooth launch at all...

From the Cameroon Domain Name Registry [netcom.cm]:

Many registrars were confused with the end date of landrush and, thus, failed to submit all the landrush domains before we actually locked down the system. Therefore we have decided to re-open landrush for an additional two weeks, starting on Monday.

Re opening of landrush: 10th August 2009 at 00:00:01 UTC.

Closing of landrush: 23rd August 2009 at 23:59:59 UTC.

To ensure that all historical domain data will be correctly imported into our system and to avoid mistakes we will lock down our zone for three days after landrush period. Go live will start on the 4th day.

Go Live: 27th August 2009 at 00:00:01 UTC.

I guess I'll check back again August 27.

[dailypress]

in an hour the open registration begins...good luck everyone thats interested. 8pm EST.

I might browse around for the fun of it for 30 minutes to see if any cool names are available but the whole "free ride off of others success" doesnt really do it for me especially that I think most popular terms have a trademark.

so more importantly just have fun browsing... lifes too short to stress out for snatching names to only sit on it ;)

[dailypress]

Just heard that it got postponed AGAIN!

[bill]

Do you have a reference for that? I don't see anything at the Cameroon Domain Name Registry site.

[dailypress]

me neither but I called Moniker and they said that unfortunately it has been postponed.

[dailypress]

and from what I heard they're going for ~ $350/year... wouldnt you be better off buying examplee.com, exammple.co,, exmple.com and 30 different typo versions of example for $10 bucks each rather than one .CM? you'd also save 50 bucks this way.

Didnt the registrar think of that? How do they justify 350 bucks per domain? Are people really buying into this?

im not gonna bother buying .cm version for my own trademark.

[bill]

$350/year

Their interface currently says $119. Are you sure?

$350/year is still going to pull in a lot of the typo squatters, but it will make a lot of legitimate trademark holders think twice.

[dailypress]

I am not sure. Thats according to two registrars I spoke to. I guess each set their own price.

[dailypress]

Im sorry I called again to make sure and they said its for 2 years not 1. But I still think each registrar set their own price cause I learned the hard way from purchasing several .TEL domains at a much higher price.

[bill]

I'm not sure if this one is finally out there. Some registrars have told me that they still don't have pricing and they don't know when the names will be available to the public. The Cameroon Domain Name Registry is most likely still backlogged with all the Landrush applications.

[IanTurner]

I have .cm landrush domains already under my control at the registrar control panel. They also resolve to my landing domains.