Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig neustar.com. NS
Answer
neustar.com. 5 NS pdns196.ultradns.co.uk.
neustar.com. 5 NS pdns196.ultradns.biz.
neustar.com. 5 NS pdns196.ultradns.com.
neustar.com. 5 NS udns2.ultradns.net.
neustar.com. 5 NS pdns196.ultradns.org.
neustar.com. 5 NS pdns196.ultradns.info.
neustar.com. 5 NS udns1.ultradns.net.
neustar.com. 5 NS pdns196.ultradns.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0