In China, individuals are not eligible to register domains

In China last week officially banned the registration of domains in the national domain zone .cn for individuals. Thus, starting in 2010, to register new domain names with Chinese domain zone can only persons with legal status. About already registered domain names of individuals not yet clear. However great the risk that site owners who have invested in their creation and development of large sums, but are individuals may lose their investments with domain names.

January 5, 2010 some one of the first sites in the provinces of Hennan, Shanghai, Jhansi, and so on. D. Has not been available to the public. It should be noted that hosting providers servers which these site, officially announced that the equipment is no problem.

What exactly happened and what is the reason of such “emergency situations” China Central Television and the Xinhua News Agency can not answer, because they do not illuminate the subject. Members of the press meant that if this legislation will not have any workaround in a list of allowed sites of individuals, the masses will start mass discontent. Moreover, local users, their interest exchanged a foreign domain zones, will only hurt the country’s economy, registering domains in other national areas and thus giving their money to foreign companies.

In response to the opinion of the press and the public, the PRC government has its own vision of the problem: according to statistics in the state 99% of pornographic sites are owned by individuals. That is why the law prohibiting individuals to register domains in the zone .cn – it’s just an additional measure to combat pornography on the Internet. The news of the adoption of this legislation by the Chinese government has sent to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which does not comment on this decision.

Analysts and experts also have an opinion on the adoption of this legislation: in this way the Chinese government is going to put an end not only pornography, but also with any other opposition in the country, blocking her access to the most popular and accessible public information resources – the Internet. Prior to this, China’s opposition has been denied access to radio, press and TV (as in Russia).

In the meantime, the tops of arguing about the appropriateness of the new law, statistics say that this innovation will reduce the number of domain names in the .cn about 30-40%. Approximately the same number lost profits, local domain name registrars and hosting companies.

Recall that in the beginning of the year were the statistical data on Chinese domain zone .cn, which in late 2009 was the absolute leader in the number of registered domains in the world (more than 13.5 million.). The second place ranking German occupied zone .de (12 million. Domain). However, to lead the Chinese national domain zone will have a short time, if the authorities did not amend its legislation adopted.