China: If ICANN, so can we

November 20, 2000
Web posted at: 4:31 PM HKT (0831 GMT)

By Staff reporters for ebizasia

Attempts to control Chinese cyberspace have intensified with China launching its own central agency for the registration of Chinese language Web addresses in defiance of the international governing body.

The move appears to show reluctance by China to accept the rules set down by the U.S.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In theory, this organization has the sole power to appoint registrars around the world to govern the use of common web address suffixes such as ".com" and ".net", also known as generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs).

Stepping right into the path of ICANN, the Chinese Government has anointed the China Internet Network Information center as the only body authorized to register Chinese language addresses. Within two days, the agency received almost half-a-million applications.

However, some analysts have since played down the move, suggesting the Chinese-language marketplace might not yet have been taken particularly seriously by ICANN.

Taiwan-based Indosuez WI Carr Securities analyst May Lee said: "I would have thought that ICANN would be centered on English-language domains, given that they are U.S.-based. I would be surprised if they had given much thought at all to Chinese-language domains.

"I don't think China is trying to openly flaunt ICANN. It's more China's way of asserting its presence."

The launch of the agency closely follows the release by Beijing authorities of regulations controlling news and chat rooms on the Internet.

Under the rules, all Web sites will be required to seek approval from China's State cabinet before publishing online. They will also be prohibited from reporting or writing news themselves, and must rely on State media.

Meanwhile, Internet surfers and dotcom companies will also have to recognize a range of new suffixes, announced by ICANN during a meeting at California's Marina Del Rey.

The group's board voted to double the number of suffixes from seven to 14. From the middle of next year online sites can be tagged with ".biz", ".aero", ".coop", ".info", ".museum", ".name" and ".pro". Some will be available to all, while others such as ".museum" and ".biz" will be restricted to members of companies or particular fields.

ICANN asked $ US50,000 a time to consider new domain name proposals and received 44 paid applications from companies which were keen to operate several hundred new domains varying from ".xxx" to ".planet".

The first round of suffixes comprised ".com", ".net", ".org", ".edu", ".int", ".mil", and ".gov". and nothing new has been added since the late 1980s.

Created in 1988, ICANN has been accused of being too Western focused and closer to big business than regular Internet users, leading to the online election of five "ordinary people" to its board.

Meanwhile, the implications across Asia from China's reluctance to follow the ICANN line, and the introduction of new suffixes, remains unclear.

According to Charles Mok, chairman of the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association, the impending local-language domain name explosion could provide a significant headache for large and small companies in the region.

Mok says that to prevent misuse by cybersquatters,multi-national companies will have to register domain names in the languages of all the countries where they operate. Smaller companies will also have to register in every Asian country where they intend to do business.

CNN.com correspondents Nic Hopkins, Nick Easen and Steven Young, and Reuters contributed to this report.

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