According to a story which appeared in globaltimes.cn, “the Chinese government is stepping up efforts to strengthen management of the Internet with the recent drafting of an “unprecedented” regulation on Internet domain names.”
According to a draft regulation on Internet domain names issued by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Internet domain names with access to China should be provided by domestic Internet domain name registration services, which should in turn be managed by Chinese institutions.
Service providers that are not under the management of Chinese institutions cannot offer domain names with access to China.
The draft added that violators can be punished with a penalty of up to 30,000 yuan ($4,628). Their violations will also be announced in public notices and rectifications will be demanded.
Authorities are soliciting public opinions on the draft until April 25.
“Under the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), China pledged to strengthen the precise administration of cyberspace and to build a multilateral, democratic and transparent Internet governance system.
What does this mean for domain names owned by those outside of China, seems as the domain names might not work and their owners be subject to fines unless the domains are registered with a Chinese registrar and based on servers inside of China or may mean that all domain name registrars will have to get licensed in China.
Something for everyone to keep their eye on for sure.
Always loopholes around such things, just like the GTLD’s their entire platform is one big loophole.
Any Chinese sales we have done they want to transfer to ename.
The big issue is all those people holding those portfolio of 5L.com and 7N.com’s at non Chinese companies waiting to dump them on poor Chinese souls by renewal time?
“Service providers that are not under the management of Chinese institutions cannot offer domain names with access to China.”
IF that means all businesses that are currently operating on the internet, can’t do business in china unless their domains are registered in china, then ecommerce activity there from outside of china will end. sounds like a way to end economic activity on the internet in china, unless its based in china. that would cut many directions in many ways. few global businesses would be willing to have their domains registered within china. they would all have to register or buy new names specific to activity within china, and be willing to take the associated risks of operation of those domains within that jurisdiction. unless I’m missing something that’s how it sounds on first blush.
Ryan
All registries have to be licensed not just the new gTLD’s but .com net as well
Trade war with the world (as we know it Jim) is not in Chinese interests, they know this. The licensing I can understand anything further will trigger a Cuban mindset in the west and strengthen Hong Kong’s hand in the east.
The China spam is quiet now, 4L.com with vowels, and V they are offering $100, down from $300, and for 4L.com chips it is around $1500
Control, Control, it is all about control. This is wrong thinking. Don’t they get it, ultimately we control nothing in the big picture. All the disruption on every level is to break the hold of those that control, from politics to Uber. They tried to control the Telephony world and we broke down and disrupted the monopolies of the world with the Internet and VOIP in the early 90’s. China was the last to deregulate and open up their government owned telephone monopolies. The new order of the times is OPEN not closed control. Trying to control through regulation is like trying to control the ocean. The new waves will eventually breakdown any barriers that are erected. Every opportunity the Chinese get they try and control the rest of the world and keep their people isolated. The beautiful thing about the Internet was that it was an atomic bomb to their governmental strangle hold they had on their people and the flow of information and free trade. We are not going backwards as a planet. They are not going to be able to block trade routes either in the international waters or the free trade routes of the Internet we have spent the last 20 years opening up. Domains are the vehicles that run up and down those open trade routes. The horse has already left the barn. Once their people have tasted freedom, there is no going back. The Chinese are more capitalistic these days than the western world. The Chinese people will never return to those socialistic and controlling ways. We might before they do. The Chinese middle class and elite have bitten into the apple of freedom and there is no going back, they are too busy thinking about how to globalize their new found freedoms, not block and retard them. Their outdated control freak government is testing the waters to see how bad the revolution will be if they allow theses new policies. The beautiful thing is we don’t have to fight this battle, the Chinese people will fight it internally. The order of the day is dissolving boundaries not erecting them. The other shoe isn’t going to drop because they are Gucci.
Chris
Really “the Chinese people will fight (the government) internally”
How has that gone in the past?
A lot of those people who fought the government are in jail, no?
Moreover it’s a protectionist law, to protect Chinese based registrars and other China based companies, so why would people in China protest against the government?
Michael,
I predicted this publicly in January of 2016.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/china-will-block-coms-for-a-competive-edge.913319/
Most of this was public information in 2015 and was originally slated for August or September of 2015. It could be a coincidence that Google announced a re-organization right before that with a .XYZ domain name but I don’t think so.
– Chris Rice (not the same Chris as the original commenter)
Chris, you are spot on my friend. They may try but will quickly fail, although they still do shut down access to the internet when they want to.
This is likely much narrower than some of the interpretations here.The key question is what is meant by “domain names with access to China”? Currently having a live website in China already requires an Internet Content Provider license. To be granted a license, you must form a Chinese owned entity. So if “domain names with access to China” means “a website hosted in China”, the significant changes would be the requirements that: a.) the domains for all websites hosted in China must be provided by a Chinese registrar, and b.) the name servers for all such names must be in China.
What I heard before, there will be only view tlds allowed in Chinese Internet. Other tlds those are not in the list only permitted if bought before the full run of the registration and registered in Chinese Legal Registrars. The list only consists of .top, .win, .cn, .wang, and view other tlds with Pinyin. There is a rumor that all city name in Pinyin in those tlds has registered by government entity and companies. And I think that’s why Chinese people bought best domains before the regulations begin.
I have bought some Pinyin .top last January, but see it is true that cities and province name has not available all. The best Pinyin names in .win and .top also has gone.
Well given the status and importance of China, Hong Kong, and Shanghai in relation to the worldwide gold market, I would think they would want to approve the .Gold TLD.
Just less than a week ago I was even contacted out of the blue about a certain .Gold domain by an apparently Chinese party from a QQ.com email address. Interestingly enough, however, when I tried to list this domain on 4.CN afterward, I received an error message I had never seen before about exactly this issue and how one cannot list any domain that is not approved by the Ministry. Go ahead and try it yourself – see whether any domain you try to list on 4.CN now gets rejected with that error message or not.
@Chris Hartnett said:
“The Chinese middle class and elite have bitten into the apple of freedom and there is no going back, they are too busy thinking about how to globalize their new found freedoms, not block and retard them. Their outdated control freak government is testing the waters to see how bad the revolution will be if they allow theses new policies. The beautiful thing is we don’t have to fight this battle, the Chinese people will fight it internally. The order of the day is dissolving boundaries not erecting them.”
When you’re quoting George Soros, why not give him a credit?
George Soros my backside. He wishes he was that clear. Who are you? MoveOn.org ? Is this Spam?
Mike who is this? Obviously off topic?
By the way I did chat about government action in China as the biggest potential issue to “Chinese” domains many times both on the blog and on Sherpa
I’d like to hear what happens now when more people try to list on 4.CN and if they get the message I mentioned above.
Nobody cares about your stupid .gold propaganda, stop trying to pump your dumb domains on every post polar bear
You obviously care very deeply about my “propaganda,” troll. However, you don’t appear to have any appreciation of someone being honest and upfront about what he supports. And no one has ever tried to argue the actual points I’ve made about .Gold, for instance, because the points are simply factual and they can’t.
I support .US, .Gold, and .Club, honestly and openly. I also think many people have been genuinely short-sighted and stultified about them, and have failed to think outside the box. In the case of Neustar and .US, also failed to lift a finger. You have a problem with that, troll?
On the other hand (or paw, whichever you prefer), perhaps you are merely one of the big dog domainers trolling to try to figure out whether I really did receive a Chinese email from QQ.com inquiring about a .Gold so you can determine whether to try to swoop in on this TLD you have overlooked? Well I can always post a screen shot somewhere if you’d like.
So the facts are that I did receive a Chinese email about a .Gold domain just last week. When I tried to list it on 4.CN afterward, I did receive the rejection message about domains that are not approved by the “Ministry,” and that is most definitely pertinent to this thread. I imagine plenty of other TLDs if not individual domains in normally approved TLDs might be getting that rejection message on 4.CN as well, and it would seem that would also definitely be of interest to the domain investing community now too. But thank you for your concern and for presuming to speak on behalf of everyone else, troll, and please come again.
Nobody in China or anywhere else in the world is talking about .GOLD except you.
First you are crying they are to expensive to register, now you are probably coming up to renewal on them, and have not even sold one, and thinking you can get thru to 4.cn so you can sell your reg fee .gold domain there.
They don’t care, they can barely keep up with their liquid marketplace, let alone huck your .gold crud on there.
I have pulled up a report of your domains, and they are not good.
LOL
You’re a very sick person, and you have no idea what you are talking about, who I am, or what I am doing. But by all means do post this “report” here please, LOL.
Thank you for being so interested in me, however. Had no idea I had a such a fan.
You should visit this interesting story Michael : http://shanghaiist.com/2016/04/06/fan_binxing_uses_vpn_great_firewall.php
Fan Binxing , The architect of China’s Great Firewall embarrassed after needing to use VPN in front of live audience.