On the Internet, .cc is the

country code top-level domain A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all tw ...

(ccTLD) for the

Cocos (Keeling) Islands The Cocos (Keeling) Islands (), officially the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands (; ), are an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean, comprising a small archipelago approximately midway between Australia and Sri Lanka and rel ...

, an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n territory.

Management

It is administered by an American company,

VeriSign Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and generic top-level d ...

, 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 The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet P ...

; eNIC manages the TLD alongside SamsDirect Internet.

Registration

Registration is made directly at second-level.

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 held by companies who offer no charge

subdomain In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is a part of another (main) domain. For example, if a domain offered an online store as part of their website it might use the subdomain. Overview The Domain Name System ...

registration.

co.cc

The co.cc URL has been known to host spammers, who create

spam blog A spam blog, also known as an auto blog or the neologism splog, is a blog which the author uses to promote affiliated websites, to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites or to simply sell links/ads. The purpose of a splog can be ...

s, or "splogs", often with nonsense names. Due to such spamming, in July 2011

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

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. The abundance of cheap .co.cc domains had also been used by those who sold fake "anti-virus" programs. 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. In 2018, co.cc was listed for sale for US$500,000.00. As of 2019, co.cc is registered to and in use by another entity.

Usage

The

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a '' de facto'' state that comprises the northeastern portion of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, and its territory is considered by all o ...

also uses the .cc domain, along with .nc.tr.

treats .cc as a

generic top-level domain Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of ev ...

(gTLD) because "users and website owners frequently see he domainas being more generic than country-targeted." The TLD is preferred by many cricket and cycling clubs, as well as churches and

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

organizations, since "CC" can be an abbreviation for "

Christian Church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus Christ. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a syn ...

" or "

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

". Some open-source/open-hardware projects, such as the

Arduino Arduino () is an Italian open-source hardware and open-source software, software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardwar ...

project, use a .cc for their home pages, since "CC" is also the abbreviation for "

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

", whose

licenses A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

are used in the projects. Business owners in Southern Massachusetts are rapidly adopting

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The ...

CC domains for local identity. Canadian Club whiskey has also used .cc domains for marketing purposes. It is also used for some

community colleges A community college is a type of undergraduate higher education institution, generally leading to an associate degree, certificate, or diploma. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an open en ...

, 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.

References

External links

VeriSign .cc whois database lookup
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cc Internet properties established in 1997 Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries members Country code top-level domains Science and technology in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands he:סיומת אינטרנט#טבלת סיומות המדינות sv:Toppdomän#C