Overseas TLD Registries Licensed by Chinese Government

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Overseas TLD Registries Licensed by Chinese Government

	By Jian Chuan Zhang Senior Researcher at KNET and ZDNS
	December 06, 2016 Views: 7,393 Comments: 1

It was reported that .XYZ, .CLUB and .VIP have obtained official license from the Chinese government. The approval notices can be found on the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (“MIIT”), the domain name regulator in China.

It is the first batch of overseas top-level domains (TLD) being officially approved. Previously, only two legacy TLDs—.COM and .NET—have been issued such approval. The “green light” means that Chinese registrars are able to sell these domains legally in China and the websites using these domains are allowed to do Bei’an (host the websites and get ICP numbers). All registry operators of these three TLDs adopt the registry backend platform offered by Internet Domain Name System Beijing Engineering Research Center Ltd. (“ZDNS”). The approval indicates that ZDNS’s solutions meet the MIIT’s requirements on a technical system and the ability to do real name verification.

It appears to be a strong signal that China welcomes an open and competitive domain market, given the demonstration of compliance with rules by registry operators. Inspired by the news, observers feel optimistic that more foreign TLDs will be able to come to the Chinese market, which will, in turn, help build a more dynamic and healthy domain name ecosystem. Firms, end users, and domainers are extremely happy with the availability of more domain extensions, as they have more choices in selecting preferred domain names.

By Jian Chuan Zhang, Senior Researcher at KNET and ZDNS

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Comments

Chinese Market Looking To Expand Max Menius – Dec 12, 2016 6:58 PM

There must be enormous overlap between Chinese and American business interests, and much of this potential is untapped. These couple of tld’s might possibly open the door to new partnerships or collaborations. As you suggest, the domain ecosystem becomes much larger as a result of China embracing alternatives relevant around the world.

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