Cameroon Telecommunications

Revision as of 20:33, 16 February 2021 by JP (talk | contribs)
Country: Cameroon
Website: camnet.cm

Cameroon Telecommunications, or CAMTEL, was the registry operator and sponsor organization that manages and administers the .cm ccTLD for Cameroon.[1]

Wildcarding Controversy and Typosquatting edit

In 2006, the .cm Registry set up a wild card DNS record for all unregistered .cm domains, in partnership with Canadian domain investor Kevin Ham. This arrangement redirected traffic on all unregistered domains to a parking page with pay-per-click ads, agoga.com. Subsequent .CM auctions generated millions of dollars in revenues.

In 2009, McAfee designated .cm as the riskiest namespace with 36.7% of .cm websites posing a security risk to web users.[2]

Reform and Redelegation Efforts edit

In December 2010, the government of Cameroon passed Law No. 2010/13, which among other things placed management of the .cm ccTLD in the hands of the National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ANTIC).[3]. While it appears that ANTIC intended to initiate a redelegation request with IANA,[3] IANA has no record of a request.[4] CAMTEL is still listed on IANA's delegation record.[5] However, none of the contact information is valid, and camnet.cm no longer resolves.[6] The NIC.cm site run by ANTIC appears to be the operating registry.[7]

References edit