China Iceberg

Seeing China for what it really is...

For the past 6 months China has gone through what can only be described as a major dusting off of their regulatory system in terms of online activities within China. The laws and regulations have been around for a while, but as all things in China there seem to be a substantial time delay between when a law comes into effect and when the regulators actually start acting on it.

So, for those of you who do not know, all companies (and it is ONLY possible for companies now) that wants to own a .cn (.net.cn, .com.cn, .org.cn, etc. included) MUST have a Chinese business license.

This is quite common for non .com domains, one does need to show some kind of relationship to a country to be able to get a country specific domain, and I think it is a good thing… Hands down… However, a lot of things can be (and already have been) said about how it is being implemented. Random shut downs, or shutdown orders at 6pm on a Friday afternoon with 10 minutes to comply is quite common for sites that do not have an ICP license by now. Why they do not have it beats me however, and this is not going to be a blog about how to file for an ICP license. If you want to know about that, go to www.candisgroup.com.

Overall though, this is a good thing, and this is why:

Wherever Internet regulation is in its infancy, there are domain harvesting happening on a massive scale in the hopes that the domain harvesters (read “criminals”) will be able to sell the domain to the unsuspecting company that at some point in the future would like to do business in a specific market.

But now, with the regulations being enforced, domain harvesting is becoming virtually impossible in China. No individual can any longer have a .cn domain, no company can register a domain without a proper business license, and there even have to be a link between the name on the business license and the domain in question. So, as long as you are legit, have your papers in order, and actual business license in China that is, it is quick and easy to get an ICP license and there is nothing to complain about.

For those of you that cannot get an ICP license, stick with a .com domain, it works just as well.