.cc
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| Introduced | 13 October 1997 |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | eNIC (a VeriSign company) |
| Sponsor | Island Internet Services |
| Intended use | Entities connected with  Cocos (Keeling) Islands |
| Actual use | Varied site topics; few sites relate to the islands |
| Registration restrictions | None |
| Structure | Registrations permitted at second level |
| Documents | Registration agreement |
| Dispute policies | UDRP |
| Registry website | Verisign .cc Registry |
On the Internet, .cc is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory. It is administered by a United States company, VeriSign, through a subsidiary company, eNIC, which promotes it for international registration as "the next .com". The .cc domain was originally assigned to eNIC in October 1997 by the IANA; eNIC manages the TLD alongside SamsDirect Internet.[1]
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus also uses the .cc domain, along with .nc.tr. Google treats .cc as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) because "users and website owners frequently see [the domain] as being more generic than country-targeted."[2]
Registration is made directly at second-level.
The TLD is preferred by many cricket and cycling clubs, as well as churches and Christian organizations, since "CC" can be an abbreviation for "Christian Church" or "Catholic Church". Some open-source/open-hardware projects, such as the Arduino project, use a .cc for their home pages, since "CC" is also the abbreviation for "Creative Commons", whose licenses are used in the projects. Business owners in Southern Massachusetts are rapidly adopting Cape Cod CC domains for local identity. Canadian Club whiskey has also used .cc domains for marketing purposes.[citation needed] It is also used for some community colleges, though other domains, such as .edu, are more popular.
Issues
In 2016, the Anti-Phishing Working Group stated that the .cc, .com, .pw, and .tk domain names account for 75% of all malicious domain registrations.[3]
Second level domains
gov.cu.cc, com.cc, net.cc, edu.cc, org.cc
A number of second-level domain names are also maintained by CoCCA, including "com.cc", "net.cc", "edu.cc", and "org.cc".
cc.cc, co.cc, cu.cc, cz.cc
These are not official hierarchies of .cc, but domains owned by companies who offer free subdomain registration.
co.cc
The co.cc URL has been known to host spammers, who create spam blogs, or "splogs", often with nonsense names. Due to such spamming, in July 2011 Google removed over 11 million .co.cc websites from its search results. Legitimate sites (per Google's Webmaster Guidelines) on the .co.cc subdomain could send a reconsideration request to Google to have their specific site excluded from the ban.[4][5][6][7]
The abundance of cheap .co.cc domains had also been used by those who sold fake "anti-virus" programs.[8]
From 2012 to 2014, the co.cc website and name servers were not online. There was no formal statement by the company, but they did stop accepting new registrations some time before they closed.[9]
In 2018, co.cc was listed for sale for US$500,000.00.[10] As of 2019, co.cc is registered to and in use by another entity.[11]
See also
References
- ^ "S. Hrg. 107-1100 - Icann Governance". GovInfo.gov. U.S. Government Printing Office. 14 February 2001. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
- ^ "Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites". Archived from the original on 5 October 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
- ^ Judah, Jacob (2 November 2023). "How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime". MIT Technology Review. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
- ^ "Google dumps all 11+ million .co.cc sites from its results". 6 July 2011.
- ^ "Google Delists All CO.CC Domains From Index". Searchengineland.com. 1 July 2011. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ^ "Google Bans A Complete Subdomain From Index: co.cc". Seroundtable.com. July 2011. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ^ "Google Discussiegroepen". Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ^ David Talbot. "The Perfect Scam". Technology Review. Archived from the original on 29 January 2012. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ^ "Free Registrar co.cc Goes the Way of the Dodo". 15 November 2012. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
- ^ "This domain name CO.CC is for sale".
- ^ "Cobra Browser".