Business 2.0’s Paul Sloan has been digging into the .CM domain name scam. A domain name broker managed to convince the government of Cameroon, which controls .cm, to do a deal where any mis-typed domain name, like Google.cm (instead of google.com), takes the visitor to an advertising-filled landing page (the ads are served by Yahoo).
The .CM pages are served based on a wildcard. If the domain has not been registered, the user is redirected to agoga.com. Since the redirects are taking place via a wildcard, and domains are not actually being registered, there is little trademark holders can do to fight this (other than register the domain themselves).
This is actually one of the cleaner scams occurring in the extremely dirty domain name business. ICANN, which oversees top level domains like .com, .net and .info, has no oversight or regulatory powers over the two-letter country code domains like .cm. It’s up to the individual countries to decide what is ethical and what isn’t. And when money is thrown at these small countries, it seems that they have little hesitation in giving control of their namespace to a relatively unknown speculator.
Update: Some of the comments below suggest that it’s unreasonable for me to make broad statements characterizing the entire domain industry as “dirty.” I think those criticisms are fair and worth pointing out here in the post. There are intelligent people who disagree with some of my opinions.
Open DNS… try it.
Everybody grab your popcorn . It’s a blog duel.
Frank maybe Mike left pool because he had a guilty conscience about all the tm typo names pool was selling off (and monetizing before releasing I might add).
I’m pretty sure while you were with Pool during its rise that they were one of the top companies involved in “clever scams in the dirty domain business”.
How many registrar accreditations do they have now anyway? How many registrar accreds does 1 company need ? You worked around the barriers just like any business person would . . . and now you point the finger and call the “industry” dirty ? CLASSIC
No blog duel from me Adam.. I am predisposed to like Mike, but I just don’t understand the vitriol and unfair malignment of an entire space .. the hate coming from his ivory tower. If we’re dirty for trying to run white hat businesses in this space then so’s he can be no better.. that’s all.
A proposal was made by an undisclosed company to the Telecommunication Regulation Authority in Oman to have all unresolved traffic under the .om domain be redirected to a website created by that company called Search.om. The TRA made a public consultation announcement and has been collecting feedback. We do not know if they are going to go with the deal or not yet.
I’ve written about it last month here
http://blue-chi.blogspot.com/2.....o-tra.html
The more I look into the domain industry, the more I think Michael is just telling it like it is. This my be what the future Domain Conferences look like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....mp;search=
Adam, pass the popcorn please.
Michael,
As a regular reader of TechCrunch, am surprised with your tone in this article and comments. Your readers are entitled to opinions, and since you’ve enabled comments, to air them.
To respond to them in a personally aggressive manner only dilutes TechCrunch.
Since we’re on the subject, am wondering why no one is making a big deal about Demand Media auctioning off trademark names followed by .TV (ie: NFL.TV) for high amounts?
That’s a scam. Making a deal with a country to monetize their assets isn’t.
Kamel, Thanks for confirming more “scams occurring in the extremely dirty domain name business”, as Michael originally stated. Anyone else want to add anything. Organized crime? Wow, that is a new one, but now that I think about it, why wouldn’t they have their fingers in ripping off brands like TM domain names. It’s easier and cheaper than making a counterfeit Gucci bag, and you make more.