There Sure Are Some Interesting Domains On The Top .CM List

by

NameJet.com sent out an e-mail tonight reminding everyone that the .cm Landrush ends next week on July 30 at 5pm EST.

In the e-mail it lists the “Most Popular .cm Pre-orders” and for me there are quite a few surprises on the list.

While some of the domains I expected like:

books.cm

movies.cm

music.cm

news.cm

free.cm

hosting.cm

realestate.cm

insurance.cm

jobs.cm

loans.cm

mail.cm

tv.cm (the.com is trademarked)

Other domains on the list are quite surprising, that they made it to the Most Popular pre-orders list including:

band.cm

creditcard.cm (instead of creditcards.cm)

bankloan.cm

repair.cm (instead of repairs.cm)

cheapflowers.cm (instead of Flowers.cm)

puppies.cm (instead of Pets.cm)

shopper.cm  (instead of Shopping.cm)

mortgage.cm (instead of Mortgages.cm)

relocate.cm

organicfarm.cm

flowershop.cm

sportscores.cm (Instead of Sports.cm)

freewebhosting.cm

topic.cm

lowermybills.cm (trademarked)

traveldeals.cm (instead of travel.cm)

notebookreview.cm

websitetemplates.cm

You know my opinion on these domains, if its isn’t trademarked and generic, I have no problem with them. If its a trademarked term or the .com is trademarked, like Tv.com, stay away.

Before you attack, take the time to remember that there has been some huge dollars sales of  generic  .com typo’s in the past, such as Mortage.com ($242,000), Voyuer.com for $112,000, Downlaod.com for $68,000, Donwload.com for $68,000, Dawnload.com for $68,000, all of which sold without any outcry from the domain community.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. Andrew says

    Michael, so if someone is operating a web site at the .com and has trademarked it, you’re saying it’s OK. But if they operate a web site at the .com and haven’t trademarked it, then it’s not OK?

    So if I have baseball.com as an operating site and have filed a trademark, stay away. But if I have baseball.com as an operating site and haven’t filed a trademark, it’s fair game?

    Not attacking, just want to understand your position.

  2. MHB says

    If someone is operating a web site at the .com and its NOT a trademarked term like Verizon (or a typo thereof) and/or they haven’t trademarked the .com, I’m saying it’s OK to register the .cm

    Correct

    I have no problem with porn.cm, just like I have no problem with porm.com

    If they have a famous trademarked term like Verizon (or a typo of that) and/or operate a web site at the .com which has been trademarked then it’s not OK to register the .cm

    Correct

    Like LowerYourbills.com which is trademarked, I would avoid it.

  3. Steve says

    How can anyone trademark a generic domain like TV.com? Laws that allow people or corporations to hijack generic words and phrases should be changed. I checked the tess database and although there are almost 7000 trademark variations on tv all the ones I saw seemed to be very specific in their use. I would have no problem owning TV.net, TV.org, etc. Seems like lawyers are the only ones that benefit from these things. imho.

    http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4010%3Ao5vjac.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=tv&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query

  4. MHB says

    Steve

    As I have said before almost every dictionary word, two letter combo, three letter combo and every phrase or saying you have ever heard is trademarked

  5. Anunt says

    In foreign countries, more people usually type in the singular version of the domain name rather than the plural version…so there is much much more traffic on singular domain names with foreign extensions.

  6. UDRPtalk says

    MHB, I think what Andrew is eluding to is that .CM is clearly useless given how it is being advertised as a way to siphon .COM traffic. If the .CM registry really has our best interests in mind, then wouldn’t they conclude that the Internet as a whole would be better off without it?

    Just look at how EuroDNS advertises .CM by saying “…people often forget to type the ‘o’ when looking for a .com domain name, and having your domain name in .CM could secure a lot of traffic and avoid any misleading use of your name”

    What a shameless and self-serving statement! Wouldn’t not having .CM in the first place avoiding misleading use of your name across the board? What a total disgrace!

    There are an infinite number of typos that end in .com (ie. Mortage.com, Dawnload.com, etc.) making it impossible to prevent and hence ICANN is forced to tolerate it, however, ICANN stepping in and suspending/regulating the .CM activity requires a single action. It’s like how the RIAA went after Napster Inc as opposed to going after the individual users of Napster which are, of course, virtually infinite and impossible to police. ICANN could nip it at the root .CM TLD level in a single action; something realistically achievable and possible.

    Frankly, I’m suprised that ICANN hasn’t suspended/regulated this ccTLD by now. ICANN should prohibit any ccTLD registry from allowing it’s resellers to suggest that it is a typo of another extension.

  7. Anunt says

    On your poll, it shows that most people (73%) are not going to register any .cm domain names.

    Not many risk takers!

  9. Muppy says

    @UDRPtalk: you do not seem to have thought that through: following your arguments, .us is a typo of .ua as well. I believe that the Ukrainians should no longer bear the insult of being mistaken for Americans. 😉 Why don’t you ask the ICANN to intervene here as well? (Human rights violation!)

    Oh, hold on… It’s not even ICANN’s responsibility… And IANA has decided that the country code TLDs follow the ISO-3166-Alpha-2 standard, only exception being the UK.

    Disclaimer: if you find some irony in my comment, you may keep it. 😉

  10. UDRPtalk says

    @snicksnack – But they can regulate it. What excuse do they have for not doing that in light of the way the .CM registry is promoting it as a “Typo of .COM”?

  14. snicksnack says

    The registry does not promote it as a typo. The registry has pointed out that the domains receive type in traffic (I assume it is from .CN and .COM).

    Also it is up to the registrars how to promote it. If I run a business and believe it makes moire money to broadcast terrbile advertisement then it is up to me to do so.

  15. Muppy says

    @UDRPtalk: being promoted as such or not doesn’t change the fact that .cm is indeed a typo of .com. Since this is a very important fact for trademark holders (and as far as I know, the Sunrise period was strictly for trademark holders only!), I believe it’s not wrong to actually remind people of that.

    I would have liked to hear the outcry if nobody ever mentioned that fact! Then the words “cheater”, “robbers”, or “rip-off” might have dominated the discussion…

  20. Muppy says

    Hm, I can’t see your point. .xxx was supposed to be introduced as a sponsored gTLD, such as .tel for example. .cm is a ccTLD — a TLD where this country has a legal right(!) to use. Where exactly is your point?

  21. UDRPtalk says

    @Muppy – My point is that IANA/ICANN should not sponsor illegal behavior. They should prohibit any registry from allowing its resellers to promote its ccTLD as a TYPO of any other TLD. That’s considered “passing off” which is illegal.

  22. Muppy says

    Ah, now we are at a totally different level of this discussion: it’s not the .cm as such, but the advertisement for that. In this point, I go with “snicksnack” who said: “[…] it is up to the registrars how to promote it. If I run a business and believe it makes moire (sic!) money to broadcast terrbile (sic!) advertisement then it is up to me to do so.”

    You can blame the registrars, but not the country of making use of its legally sound TLD.

  23. snicksnack says

    It might be illegal in your country it might not be in other countries. I doubt that Enom or EuroDNS, which are promoting .CM would do something illegal.

    Here in China adult content is illegal so is gambling, so shouldn’t IANA or ICANN force all gambling sites and adult sites to shut down ?

  24. Muppy says

    Sorry, should be “for making use”. Anyway, having a look at the list of ISO-3166-Alpha-2 codes, you might also object .et (Ethiopia), .ne (Niger) and a few others to be used. Also, .se is a typo of .es and so on… Where’s the limit? Who’s gonna decide this limit?

  25. UDRPtalk says

    @Muppy – If the .NE registry labels itself as a TYPO of .NET, then they are crossing the line by redefining it’s meaning and purpose and the public will use that as a justification to infringe on .NET, just like the fiasco that’s occurring with .CM.

  26. Muppy says

    If “redefining its meaning” is “crossing the line”, then what is .tv? That’s the ccTLD of Tuvalu. Or .fm? .am? .me (personal domains, nothing to do with Montenegro)?

  27. UDRPtalk says

    If the .CM registry’s intentions are honorable, then why don’t they DNS forward the whole .CM domain to .COM? If they don’t do that, then that means they are contributing to the TYPOSQUATTING problem since they would be making it possible for JOBS.CM to be owned by someone other than JOBS.COM.

    By DNS forwarding .CM to .COM, it guarantees that every .COM registrant gets their corresponding .CM domain. If they do that, then I’ll buy the fact that they are trying to protect .COM owners. If they don’t do that, then we can assume that they are trying to harm .COM owners.

  29. Muppy says

    Ok, then .es should forward its root zone to .se? .ua should forward everything to .us? Where should .cn forward its domains to? And the US government should forward all US Dollar reserves they own to my bank account (just to make sure they don’t buy more weapons — which is an abuse of money in my(!) definition)…

    Sorry, but this is now getting a little silly! Cameroon makes use of the TLD that is legally theirs. I still can’t see the problem. They have introduced that domain with a Sunrise period where every trademark holder could have registered his domain name. And this was reserved for trademark holders ONLY. As far as I got to know, they even had to submit a copy of their trademark certificate to prevent fraudulent registrations. If they failed to register their names, you cannot blame that on Cameroon — even though you try and try and try, it won’t make things better, and your arguments are absolutely unsustainable from a legal point of view.

  30. snicksnack says

    @Muppy

    I would assume the .CM registry would agree with the DNS forwarding, if each and every .COM would pay them the registration fee, so UDRPtalk’s proposal might not be so silly after all.

  31. MHB says

    Guys

    As I said in a post of last week, ICANN has NO authority over Country Codes.

    ICANN only has authority over TOP Level Domains, the 21 that exist today from .com to .mobi to .aero.

    ICANN didn’t assign Cameroon the .CM extension.

    ICANN was never in the position, nor do they have authority to tell Cameroon they cannot use the extension that is granted to each country to by national right.

    Here is that post again:

    http://www.thedomains.com/2009/07/19/icann-has-little-power-on-cctlds/

  32. MHB says

    UDRP

    I would agree with the statement “The Internet Would be better off without the .CM extension”.

    But that is not an option that is on the table.

    They have a right, the same right given to all countries to operate the country code they were given by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority:

    http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/

    http://www.iana.org/about/

    Do I wish that iana would have assigned a different two letter code to them, sure.

    Do I wish that there was no such disease as cancer sure.

    Do I wish there was no such thing as war sure.

    Do I wish that registrar and NameJet.com didn’t advertise the extension as a typo for .com, sure.

    What can be done about it.

    nothing.

    Icann won’t even make a policy regarding how domains should drop creating this wild world where registrars can do what every they want with their customers expired domains.

    You think they can or will police advertisements by these companies.

    Moreover, how could they stop these advertisement?

    The FTC actually is in charge of false and misleading advertising, but guess what, these statements are not false or misleading, as the .cm extension is a typo for .com.

    So domainers did NOT create this situation.

    We can only do, what we can do, which in my opinion is stay clear of tradmarked terms and miss-spells of them, and any .cm which has a trademarked .com.

    Of course you can choice not to participate at all.