GoDaddy.com announced today that it will stop registering new Chinese domain names following Chinese government requests for additional personal information on its existing customers.
“This is the first time a registry has asked us to retroactively obtain additional verification and documentation of individuals who have registered a domain name through our company,” GoDaddy General Counsel and Executive Vice President Christine Jones said.
“We are concerned for the security of the individuals affected by CNNIC’s new requirements, as well as for the chilling effect we believe the requirements will have on new .CN domain name Registrations,” she told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
“For these reasons, we have decided to discontinue offering new .CN domain names at this time. We continue to manage the .CN domain names of our existing customers.”
Regulations announced in December 2009 by China, require all new registrants of .CN domain names to provide “color headshot photo identification, business identification (including a Chinese business registration number), and physically signed registration forms.
This should really hurt the value of .CN domains.
Godaddy now is responsible for 50% of all new domain registrations and any extension is going to have a very hard time to prosper if Godaddy doesn’t sell it.
We applaud Godaddy for taking this stance.
“Godaddy now is responsible for 50% of all new domain registrations and any extension is going to have a very hard time to prosper if Godaddy doesn’t sell it.” That is huge market share, but I wonder what their market share is specifically in China?
I would speculate GD has a very small percentage of the market.
If I remember correctly, chinese citizens can buy a .cn for a very low price which I doubt GD can offer.
If GD had conceded to the demands, the chinese gov’t could eventually demand to know who owns a particular .com domain or how many .com domains a chinese citizen owns. And, if they didn’t supply it, they would threaten to cut GD off.
The way the chinese gov’t negotiates is “tit” for “tat”.
Go Daddy has 27,000 .cn names under management. There are 13 million .cn names out there.
CNNIC won’t even notice.
Chinese residents can apparently buy .cns for $0.15 from other registrars, so they have no reason to go to Go Daddy.
Kevin
Its the resale value and the perception of the .cn market which is taking a hit.
If your not in China, I would run away from any .cn domain.
MHB: I totally agree.
Things are certainly getting interesting vis a vis China.
cctlds registries are always headache to domainers
It simply doesn’t make economical sense for GoDaddy to deal with .CN. Nothing more nothing less.
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not a smart decision… very soon China will be the #1 market of the world
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if GoDaddy thinks to come back in China “when it will become a true democracy” the time to wait will be very long and the business lost very big… 😐
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but… can the chinese always buy other TLDs domains and services from GoDaddy?
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They are not blocking the china market they are just electing not to handle .cn domains
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but, unfortunately, China has the money to create (someday) its own “super registrar” and compete worldwide
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