China gets into the domain game with .cn

[mole]

More '.cn' to be seen in domain name
(FU JING)
08/17/2002

The number of Chinese-based domain names with the ".cn" suffix is expected to climb enormously in the near future after the Ministry of Information Technology eases its rules at the end of next month.
The ministry made public a new regulation on Thursday in an effort to spur on China's Internet development and ensure its information security.

Liu Zhihong, director of the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), said the relaxation of the regulation would provide much easier and quicker access for domain name applicants. After September 30, qualified applicants will have domain names approved within six hours of their online registration.

Presently,the process takes up to five days.

"It will take less time than the registration of foreign domain names," said Liu, adding that foreign domain name providers would have guaranteed registration within 24 hours of their application.

According to the new regulation, the cost of using a domain name will be decided by the Internet market, instead of information authorities.

At the moment, every ".cn"user is hit with an annual charge of 300 yuan (US$36).

"Generally, the charge will come down," Liu said.

A ministry official, who did not want to be named, said the policy change was made because of concern over China's Internet development. China first made public its regulation about domain names in 1997.

"Now the situation has changed a lot and the policy will also be adjusted," Liu said.

Domain names in China have become hot property. Statistics show that up to about 90 per cent of China's users have registered ".com" or ".net" domains.

Domain names with the ".cn" suffix have grown from just above 4,000 in 1997 to about 126,000 by the end of June. But Liu estimated there were about 700,000 domain names in China with the ".com" or ".net" suffix.

"The situation is not beneficial to China's information security future," Liu said.

Since domain names, as invisible assets, are becoming as important as trademarks and brand names, awareness about them should be raised, the official said.

Liu said the new regulation would ensure a complete mechanism for domain name management and supervision.

The ministry is China's highest Internet authority.

The CNNIC, a neutral, non-profit-making organization, which is authorized and led by the ministry, is responsible for the daily management of domain names.

[owndomain]

I will never register a .cn name, no matter how cheap it is.

If In China there is any dispute, you are deem to be defeated if the Complainant is a big company.

Originally posted by owndomain
...
If In China there is any dispute, you are deem to be defeated if the Complainant is a big company.

Smell like capitalism!

Well if all the .us speculator logic is right the billions of people living in China will be a huge market and the .cn extension will catch up to and beat the .com tld in about 2 days it's all about market size right? Oh and to be fair market saturation, since .cn is not yet exploited erm I mean saturated by multi domain cybersqua err I mean speculators/name holders.

It's interesting though that they seem to throw in new extensions every few months or make a market more accesible in some way in certain geographies, fairly soon I think will come the point where they will start .abc to keep the wheel spinning even though the hamster is long dead.

[mole]

Originally posted by Mik
fairly soon I think will come the point where they will start .abc to keep the wheel spinning even though the hamster is long dead.

I doubt the hamster is long dead Mik It's really a question of quality vs quantity of the names out there. Just take a look at the drop lists and the ridiculous names that people registered.

The internet will continue to fragment as it matures and countries assert their rights to their own internet future. We can't stop it. A one-size-fits-all model was good in the past, just politically unrealistic for the future. Next ahead, .eu :swg:

[nameslave]

> Mik: since .cn is not yet exploited erm I mean saturated by multi domain cybersqua err I mean speculators/name holders.

Just for you guys' info, there are already as many domain "investors" in China and "good names" are hard to get (especially with stricter governmental regulations).

And for those who are interested in tapping the Chinese market, please remember it's a totally different culture there. For example, 123.net or cn**.com would definitely be worth much more than domain.com or internet.com in China.

the Internet boom is dead, yes there will be growth spurts when new countries are put online or systems upgraded to make it more accesible such as in China, India etc but there will never be such a growth spurt as seen in the beginning, the growth period of the lifecycle is over and now they are in the maturity stage and trying to create post maturity growth by adding new extensions in the hope it will spurn a new landrush each time. It will work the first few times but people will become accustomed to it after a while and that strategy will not boost interest/adoption anymore. That is what I meant with the hamster being dead. Now you can disagree and say when they bring out .kids/.sex/.no/.goo it will be a landrush, yes it will, for a little while, and everytime they bring out a new one interest will drop, and most will go the way of .cc
I agree with your localisation point I guess I was just coming at it from a different concept not just domain names. Then again globalisation is here to stay.
I think the next big thing will be the multi-lingual and character domains not new extensions, especially in countries where the English alphanumeric system is not traditionally taught, countries in Asia, the Middle East and to some extent Eastern Europe.

[mole]

Originally posted by nameslave
>
And for those who are interested in tapping the Chinese market, please remember it's a totally different culture there.

Totally agree name.

China is a very tricky market to penetrate. I observe that many countries are starting to assert their national presence on the internet as their populations start to embrace the internet on a large scale. .com is seen as American based extension dominated by American companies like Amazon, eBay and Yahoo.

A member here once said that .de was the preferred domain in Germany. Perhaps its the language of the site that carries a .de, just like .cn sites would most probably carry Mandarin.

Point is, internet surfers are not as dumb as we think they are with regards to type-ins. They can learn different web addressing like a duck to water if they want. .com is not necessarily a preferred choice. Amen. :razz:

How regulated has the .cn been traditionally? If there are speculators then it can't be as bad as the .au hierarchy and hence wouldn't any easing announcements be pointless as those in the actual market beforehand have grabbed all the names they know to be best suited to the market by now (history having taught them about the dot com landrush)? Or have they been as bad as .au in their assignments and there are offices full of people waiting to run in and grab all the popular names?

Originally posted by mole

...
A member here once said that .de was the preferred domain in Germany. Perhaps its the language of the site that carries a .de, just like .cn sites would most probably carry Mandarin.
...

Mandarin until multi-media become popular, right now most sites are in Chinese or simplified Chinese to be exact! You should know the difference, Mole!

Originally posted by nameslave

...
And for those who are interested in tapping the Chinese market, please remember it's a totally different culture there.
...

"different culture", now I am not alone in this forum!

[mole]

Originally posted by goh
"different culture", now I am not alone in this forum!

Maxist culture is very lonely now, goh

Originally posted by mole


Maxist culture is very lonely now, goh

Mole, you might be starting your own "maxist culture", but Ma'r'xist is a theory which I no nuffin.com about, sorry!

[nameslave]

By different cultures, I mean e.g. when we talk about "domain.com", it's "domain-dot-com"; but for most chinese, it is "d-o-m-a-i-n-dot-com" (or even "dot-o-r-g" in the case of dot-org). As a result, the most popular domains in China tends to be number-oriented, e.g. 163.net or really short names with only 4 or 5 letters that people can SPELL out.

And as I said earlier somewhere, Chinese people (99.9999%) only browse websites in Chinese; but hey, don't worry, they already have enough websites out there for those who have access to the Internet. It's very much like the American Wide Web where the domestic market is good enough to feed themselves.

[mole]

aiyaayaaaaah...

Chairman Mao was a Ma'r'xist so you indeed no sumfin about the spelling

[nameslave]

Oh, I thought it was Max Weber and his Weberian "Weberism" ... LOL

Nameslave, relax about different cultures, I just like to borrow your "different cultures" phrase only!

[mole]

Originally posted by nameslave
Oh, I thought it was Max Weber and his Weberian "Weberism" ... LOL

hmmm... this guy is smart.

Max is always smart!

[bigdave]

Originally posted by mole
More '.cn' to be seen in domain name
(FU JING)
08/17/2002

The number of Chinese-based domain names with the ".cn" suffix is expected to climb enormously in the near future after the Ministry of Information Technology eases its rules at the end of next month.
The ministry made public a new regulation on Thursday in an effort to spur on China's Internet development and ensure its information security.

Cool. Wonder when China will petition ICANN to hand over the .tw registry!

BD