Registrar reports that overseas registrars are restricted from registering .cn domains.
According to a report at RRPproxy, .Cn registry CNNIC has temporarily halted overseas registrars from registering .cn domain names on behalf of registrants. The move comes after CNNIC cracked down on registrations last month to clean up the .cn namespace.
The notice says overseas registrars won’t be able to register .CN domains “starting with January 6, 2010, 18:00 PM (Beijing Time). The registration stop is planned to be temporarily. According to the Chinese registry, difficulties in handling the comprehensive new application material are the reason for this drastic development. The new application material is required since the middle of December 2009, when CNNIC suddenly changed its registration policies.”
The RRPproxy report also notes that China has added other restrictions:
1. Since January 1st, 2010, China domestic registrants are no longer allowed to register a .CN domain via an oversea registrar.
2. If any registrant’s business license or personal ID are not in Chinese or English, he has to file in a notarized English translation of these documents for domain name application starting with January 15th, 2010, 9:00 AM (Beijing Time).
I guess this prediction that GoDaddy would benefit from CNNIC’s crackdown may not come to fruition since the company will now need to cease offering .cn domain names. As of the time of writing, .cn domains are still listed as an option at GoDaddy. [Update: Go Daddy Sr. Director, Domain Registration Services, Rich Merdinger, informed me that the registrar received notice from NeuStar this morning about the changes. It later received notice from CNNIC. It has removed .cn as a new registration option.]
Further proof of why keeping the domain space in the hands of US government oversight is better than any “UN” or multi-national type of organization. What many people who complain about current US oversight miss is the alternative. China, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and even India and France have very active government intervention into media and public industries. Those countries and many more would have more than their share of weight when “free market” decisions need to be made.
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This just shows that jumping into the ccTLD market can be risky and that domain owners are totally at the whim and mercy of the sponsoring ccTLD registrar.
I predict that China’s next move will be to take away .cn domains from current non-Chinese owners.
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This is not really good news. Normally it will take some time for them to come up with the new verification policy, thus all new registration will have to go to the local registrars.
This move from an open ccTLD to a managed ccTLD by CNNIC is going to hit the numbers of .cn domains registered. It should be interesting to see how .cn ccTLD stacks up against .de ccTLD over the next few months.