.cn vs .com (changes in China)

[phio]

Looks like a shift is now taking place, perhaps spurring the need for verisign to alias .com's for China.

"China's tighter regulation of internet domain names is driving website owners to register overseas, according to industry sources and internet activists.

"We are seeing people starting to bypass domestic domain names," said Song Yingqiao, vice-president at HiChina, a leading web registrar. "Twenty to 30 per cent of new customers are now going for .com instead of .cn domain names."

Industry experts said the trend was triggered by swift implementation of a stricter website registration regime.

The ministry of industry and information technology reiterated in December that domain names must be registered with the government, and those that were not would "not be resolved or transferred". Regulators also put up bureaucratic hurdles before individuals setting up websites.

Chinese telecom operators and web-hosting companies said they were scanning internet traffic on request of the government and that large numbers of domain names that had not registered with the ministry had in effect been switched off.

Angry responses manifested themselves last week when a government website in the southern province of Hunan was hacked into. It displayed a message saying: "I've had enough - I've tried to register my website for several months.""

Full Article from FT, source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4b7d649c-0f9b-11df-b10f-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

[sarcle]

I read this earlier and found it interesting but I can't seem to access it again.

"You have viewed your 30 days allowance of 1 free articles. If you wish to view more, you can register for free by clicking on the button below."

Yeah, I'm going to sign up for every news site on the damn web. When are these people going to get it? Twitter or FB connect? Welcome to 2010!

Anyways this goes on to say something about Godaddy having a homepage in Chinese correct? Why the hell aren't more registrars doing this and promoting IDN?

[Wot]

The lack of response from existing Chinese (Mainland) members to the problems associated with .cn has been deafening-where are you guys? And what are your thoughts?

[Wot]

Looks like a shift is now taking place, perhaps spurring the need for verisign to alias .com's for China.

"China's tighter regulation of internet domain names is driving website owners to register overseas, according to industry sources and internet activists.

"We are seeing people starting to bypass domestic domain names," said Song Yingqiao, vice-president at HiChina, a leading web registrar. "Twenty to 30 per cent of new customers are now going for .com instead of .cn domain names."

Industry experts said the trend was triggered by swift implementation of a stricter website registration regime.

The ministry of industry and information technology reiterated in December that domain names must be registered with the government, and those that were not would "not be resolved or transferred". Regulators also put up bureaucratic hurdles before individuals setting up websites.

Chinese telecom operators and web-hosting companies said they were scanning internet traffic on request of the government and that large numbers of domain names that had not registered with the ministry had in effect been switched off.

Angry responses manifested themselves last week when a government website in the southern province of Hunan was hacked into. It displayed a message saying: "I've had enough - I've tried to register my website for several months.""

Full Article from FT, source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4b7d649c-0f9b-11df-b10f-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1


Does that mean that 60/70% still go for .cn?

[phio]

continued:

"Beijing's stricter domain name regime is part of a general tightening in web censorship. Internet experts said it could amount to a white list of allowed sites while all other content becomes unavailable to Chinese users. Industry sources said the scanning started several months ago and specialised software was being used to make the review more efficient.

"This can be done in two ways: one is that the telecom operator detects the information at its firewall; the other is by employing such software on the servers," said Mr Song.

Concrete numbers on how many websites have fallen victim to the crackdown are not available. But bloggers and critics of censorship said they were feeling the impact. "I had five domain names under my name, and three have been closed down over the past month," said William Long, a software engineer and blogger who regularly comments on web censorship."

[phio]

continued:

"People whose websites were switched off said their web hosts had told them this had happened at the request of the police. In some regions, web hosts would report website owners to the police, industry executives said.

However, the crackdown is viewed as counterproductive. "[The ministry's] intention was probably to make things more manageable, but it looks like they've created a big loophole and an incentive to go for that loophole," said an internet industry executive.

Some foreign companies, such as GoDaddy, one of the world's largest web hosts, target the market with a Chinese-language sales page but do not have a presence in the country. Beijing views this as illegal sales activity, but industry sources said there was little the government could do to stop them as blanket blockings of large numbers of foreign-hosted websites would be too controversial."

[markits]

Does that mean that 60/70% still go for .cn?

.cn only costs 20 cents to reg in China while .com cost about $8. The .com registrants are more serious in website development even though the .com space is more saturated and hard to find a suitable domain to reg.

[alpha]

Some foreign companies, such as GoDaddy, one of the world's largest web hosts, target the market with a Chinese-language sales page but do not have a presence in the country. Beijing views this as illegal sales activity

illegal?

That's so backwards.

why not just go all the way and medically remove everyones eyes at birth

[sarcle]

illegal?

That's so backwards.

why not just go all the way and medically remove everyones eyes at birth

Interestingly enough, Godaddy owns the .cn. If it's so illegal why doesn't China just yank it?

Godaddy.cn (http://godaddy.cn)

They can't remove their eyes. Then they wouldn't have viable workers. Just implant a chip into everyone's heads at birth with GPS in it that monitors brain waves. Then whenever someone even thinks about doing something the government doesn't approve of they can neutralize the problem from the source.

[Wot]

.cn only costs 20 cents to reg in China while .com cost about $8. The .com registrants are more serious in website development even though the .com space is more saturated and hard to find a suitable domain to reg.

I thought it was only ascii.cn that were/are so cheap?