17 ms·

GoDaddy pulls out of China too

190 points by jeffmould 17y ago

tkiley 17y ago
My understanding is that China's upper leadership is largely intelligent and engineering-oriented. The fact that the Chinese government thinks this type of policy is a good idea makes me wonder if they know something I don't. Do they really expect to be able to keep a lid on political speech within their country long-term? (From a practical perspective, won't this just drive .cn domainholders to switch to .com?)
- jeffmould 17y ago
  While it may help with squatting and spam domains, I don't think it is anything more than a way for the government to censor content by attempting to identify exactly who is behind each domain in country. What I don't understand is this retroactive, meaning domains previously registered will be required to provide such information. In some ways though I do think it is a well intentioned idea with requiring some higher level of verification to register a domain name. Assuming that is all it is...
  - bad_user 17y ago
    > In some ways though I do think it is a well intentioned idea Yeah, well ... the road to hell is paved with good intentions. They already have enough to identify you, unless you've given a false name / address. In which case they would only have to track the financial transaction ... and impose a rule that domains with untraceable owners should instantly be terminated (and I think this already applies to all tlds). What in the world do they need a picture for? I guess it's for fast reaction times, to identify more efficiently when they send the police at your door. Or for increased levels of paranoia amongst the population, keeping you honest and all that.
    - jeffmould 17y ago
      Oh I agree the photo is excessive. Never said the whole idea was great, just that the theory of requiring business registration verification or name verification is most likely well intentioned. What makes the whole thing skeptical and scary is that it is the government asking for this and not a specific registrar's policy.
      - bad_user 17y ago
        > the theory of requiring business registration verification or name verification is most likely well intentioned. But what good will that do? Surely having a verifiable online ID might be useful in collaborating with other people that might need some assurance you're a real person that's accountable for his behavior. But for domains, the only requirement should be as it is now ... that you must give accurate contact information. And asking for an address is too much for me anyway ... since if you're not careful about protecting it, you can become a target for maniacs (I'm still pretty pissed off about what happened to Kathy Sierra, which had the best blog I've ever read). Either way, you won't get rid of spammers, fraudsters or jerkiness.
- rick888 17y ago
  "The fact that the Chinese government thinks this type of policy is a good idea makes me wonder if they know something I don't." There were lots of very intelligent serial killers. I also seem to remember a smart woman that worked for NASA that drove many miles to get back at an old boyfriend. She wore a diaper so she wouldn't have to make a bathroom stop. The point I'm trying to make is that intelligent people many times make terrible decisions.
  - lhuang 17y ago
    Why is it that you believe the CCP's decisions are terrible? At the meta level, China has outpaced everyone in the past twenty years in regards to growth and development. Among the senior CCP leaders, I imagine most if not all, acknowledge that an open, capitalistic democracy is inevitable. Their job is to grow the country to the point where the transition to said democracy is peaceful and smooth. No China analyst worth his salt will argue that China is ready for this transition today....
    - rms 17y ago
      I'm not convinced that the Chinese economic growth is sustainable. For the sake of all those Chinese without Urban Residency Permits I hope the growth continues, but I am not optimistic. And yes, a sudden transition to democracy would be disastrous for China. However, a safe and slow transition could begin today. Btw this is mostly a disagreement of relative morals, where we in the West have this concept that a government should be "good" where that word doesn't have the same meaning in China.
      - lhuang 17y ago
        But how should the transition even begin? By repealing all internet censorship laws? Most people don't realize that every day the situation in China improves for the better. Even the stiffling hukou system that you allude to has been slowly weakened over the years. In regards to your last sentence I'm not quite sure what you mean. I took it to mean that the social ideas of justice and law are different in China, of which I would tend to agree. West = rule of law. China = rule by law. Frankly I think Chinese society is just not ready for democracy. There is simply no civic society.
- rms 17y ago
  >Do they really expect to be able to keep a lid on political speech within their country long-term? No, but they expect to be able to do it in the short term. I think at this point they are just hoping to delay a more open internet for five or seven years -- much beyond that begins to seem laughable. I suspect the leaders of China understand better than we do just how tenuous their control is, and I think their fear of free political speech is legitimate. A protest in Tiananmen Square once almost brought down the government, and I don't think the CCP could withstand another protest of that magnitude, though of course less-lethal crowd dispersal technology has come a long way.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    This is going to sound tin-foil-hattish of me, but... Maybe they think they don't need a long-term strategy. They only need to hold out short-term, until western governments take care of the problem for them. With all the nonsense going on over kiddie pr0n, copyright infringement, etc., we are hearing a lot of scare stuff that would require even the "free world" to implement the kind of controlled infrastructure that China would love.
    - lhuang 17y ago
      I think the CCP is very long-term oriented. The majority of their policies I think would support this. If anything, the CCP is willing to give short-term concessions if it will guarantee long-term success. This is not so-much the case now as China has more to bring to the bargaining table. But if you look at China's trade policies in the 80s and 90s they were very accommodating to western demands, even if it put China in a weaker position.
  - netcan 17y ago
    I think that they are even more subtle in their ideas. They know they can't control 100% over speech, nevermind information. They can have some control, say 60%. They are concerned with yielding that 60% effectively enough that the 40% doesn't matter. Maybe in the future they'll have 40%, they'll deal with that too. The Google thing was very instructive. Control was far from 100% but newspapers and Chinese sites were highly controlled. Many foreign sources, for the more skeptically inclined, were blocked, but many weren't. They selectively let in more misquotes of Google employees making absurd sounding claims. As always, the truly motivated could get to whatever news sources they wanted. The upshot is that they can control the story and public perception without preventing facts from penetrating.
- gojomo 17y ago
  What they know is their own history. Within the memory of China's current leadership, they've had a personality-cult-dictatorship and famines and purges-of-intellectuals (the 60s and 70s). Going back to the early-to-mid-20th century, China faced invading armies, a bitter civil war, and a communist revolution -- together killing tens of millions. In the 19th century, China was dominated by western foreign powers, and had another civil war -- the Taiping rebellion -- that featured a self-proclaimed "brother of Jesus" leading a "heavenly army" in a conflict that killed 25 million -- proportionately more than the US lost in its civil war of the same period (which had fewer cult/messianical undertones). US domestic policy is still informed (and twisted) by our far-more-mild experiences over the same periods. So it's understandable that the technocratic Chinese leadership thinks that their own population, without strong central control, is prone to be caught up in giant ideological swings and civil wars. While not excusing human rights violations, this insight should at least make their mindset a little less mysterious. America has had the luxury of seeing openness work for two centuries at the same time China was suffering religious, imperialist, and ideological misery.
  - cglee 17y ago
    Very good point. Another perspective that shapes China is its long term view of things. If you take a hard, LONG look at China's history, it's shaped by the peasant class. The dynastic cycles have been the result of peasant uprisings, so while everyone in the West likes to focus on the developing cities, hot technologies, etc, it's really how well the peasant class does that will shape China.
  - est 17y ago
    > So it's understandable that the technocratic Chinese leadership thinks that their own population, without strong central control, is prone to be caught up in giant ideological swings and civil wars. This is very debatable. In history, China's top two dynasties. Han and Tang, both emphasis a Taoism Wu wei rule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei Yet both empires are the most powerful, liberate and culture rich dynasties of China. Han and Tang are technically every Chinese's dream country.
- liuliu 17y ago
  > My understanding is that China's upper leadership is largely intelligent and engineering-oriented. This kind of thought scared me. It is a shame to admit that about 3 years ago, I held the same belief. But through my experience in doing startup and get in touch with several high level official's children in China, I think that it is totally wrong. Maybe they are intelligent but their intelligence are definitely not used in the right way. How can you expect one who spent the whole life on plotting how to kill politic opponents to be a visionary? From my experience, the high level officials in China are corrupted. They buy luxury goods, pay for the most luxury sex service all that stuff. There is an old Chinese saying which describes the current regime in China perfectly: 肉食者鄙，未能远谋。 It says, the one who eat meat everyday (the one in power) lost the ability to envision the future.
- drawkbox 17y ago
  Groupthink, power and committees, even intelligent and engineering-oriented, can go awry. Look at SOAP and WS standards for a sample of how bad things can go. Engineers aren't always the best managers/authority and there is lots of ego in intelligence.
- papersmith 17y ago
  "My understanding is that China's upper leadership is largely intelligent and engineering-oriented." It's a bit complicated. Over the recent years, there is an increasing divide between two rival factions. One consists of the populists who rose through meritocracy, the others being the princelings, the unofficial aristocratic lineage of the communist upper-management. The populists are the ones with engineering degrees. The princelings mostly have degrees in law, business, and the humanities. http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0816_china_li.aspx http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0816_china_li.aspx
- fauigerzigerk 17y ago
  Engineering approaches to politics and social issues are notoriously brittle. The more the Chinese leadership tries to control what can and cannot happen the more unpredictable any breakdown of control will be.
mbreese 17y ago
Since this is GoDaddy, why do I just see this as publicity? If it were most other companies, I'd be impressed, but given that it's GoDaddy, I just can't take it seriously. Even though they are talking about Congressional testimony from their general counsel regarding a very strict set of requirements (and personal information) for .cn registration, I just can't take it seriously.
- siculars 17y ago
  Bob Parsons was a USM. I'm sure he is enjoying this opportunity to do what he can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Parsons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Parsons
  - Nwallins 17y ago
    N.B. USM, as in USMC, as in United States Marine Corps.
- alanthonyc 17y ago
  Whatever you think of their commercials, you can take the facts at face value. In December, China began to enforce a new policy that required any registrant of a new .cn domain name to provide a color head shot and other business identification, including a Chinese business registration number and physical signed registration forms. ... "We were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of registrant verification being required," Christine N. Jones, general counsel of the Go Daddy Group Inc., plans to tell lawmakers Wednesday afternoon, according to a copy of her written testimony to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. "The intent of the procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals."
- dasboot 17y ago
  It's probably mainly a business decision (admin hassle) milked for PR. Let's not politicize things too much, and let's not forget that GoDaddy doesn't exactly have a stellar ethical record as well. They are quick to censor speech [1], delisting whole sites from DNS. They also have advertising policies that are questionable, etc. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/03/godaddy-silence/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/03/godaddy-silence/
darien 17y ago
Months back I registered a .cn domain using godaddy. 2 days later Godaddy sent me an email with a refund apologizing that they were unable to register. I imagine that they were growing weary of that.
liuliu 17y ago
It is unclear how they plan to do with the .cn domains that were registered on the godaddy.com.
- wmf 17y ago
  AFAIK GoDaddy is just a reseller for CNNIC for .cn domains; that contract can be renegotiated.
siculars 17y ago
The key takeaway from the article for me was not only that China is requiring enhanced registrant tracking for new domains going forward but also for previously registered domains. Not only is this a privacy issue but it is also an administrative nightmare for GoDaddy. So how will China manage this? Match a list of .cn domains registered via GoDaddy? I can only imagine the rats nest of DENY statements all over their infrastructure. The next step is for China to impose these rules as a prerequisite for registries when they renew their contracts to dole out .cn domains. Question on a tangential thread, would anybody here even use a DNS server based in China? Hardcode opendns.com DNS addresses (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220) ftw. Can you even get port 53 outbound to a non China controlled DNS server from within China? I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm very happy to see companies take a stand against China and their policies.
- rmorrison 17y ago
  China doesn't shy away from these types of administrative nightmares, here is one from a few years ago that I stumbled on the other day, which must be an mess for them to enforce: In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." (http://boingboing.net/2007/08/22/china-to-tibetan-bud.html http://boingboing.net/2007/08/22/china-to-tibetan-bud.html)
  - anamax 17y ago
    It's not completely absurd. Reincarnation is how some Buddhist traditions are passed down from generation to generation. China now has official control over such transfers. Whether that works out as de facto control is another issue, but they're trying.
grandalf 17y ago
Now Chinese entrepreneurs will have a harder time launching websites. Success!
- jhancock 17y ago
  It is an impediment to running some new site you just want to throw at the wall and see what happens. This is truly a loss. But for the most part these rules have always been challenging. I've had to run down to a Shanghai IDC in years past to show proper company backing for my server. The gov calls the IDC and says we're going to do an audit next week. The IDC looks through it books to see who doesn't have their records up to date and calls to try to mitigate any interruption in service. For a local Chinese with a plan to launch a startup, you need to get your corporate paperwork in order anyway just as you would in the U.S. In that regard, this is just one more set of forms to fill out. This change is a larger barrier for foreigners that can't read mandarin and understand current Chinese regulation. For them, they're used to being able to go to any number of web sites, typing in their credit card and owning a domain.
dogas 17y ago
Godaddy should just go ahead and pull out of america too.
sharan 17y ago
"...any registrant of a new .cn domain name to provide a color head shot and other business identification, including a Chinese business registration number and physical signed registration forms." Question: Can't ICANN postulate what can and cannot be relevant information that is gathered?
- dfranke 17y ago
  China has guns. ICANN doesn't.
- wmf 17y ago
  Can't ICANN postulate what can and cannot be relevant information that is gathered? Maybe, maybe not. The designated [ccTLD] manager must be equitable and fair to all groups in the domain that request domain names. Specifically, the same rules must be applied to all requests and they must be processed in a non-discriminatory fashion. The policies and procedures for the use of each TLD must be available for public inspection. Generally these are posted on web pages or made available for file transfer. While variations in policies and procedures from country to country are expected due to local customs and cultural values, they must be documented and available to interested parties. Requests from for-profit and non-profit companies and organizations are to be treated on an equal basis. No bias shall be shown regarding requests that may come from customers of some other business related to the TLD manager. For example, no preferential service for customers of a particular data network provider. There can be no stipulation that a particular application, protocol, or product be used. (http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-1.htm http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-1.htm) Translation: ICANN won't attempt to contradict local customs. The Sponsoring Organization shall abide by ICANN policies ... that concern ... other topics, in the circumstance that the registration policies for the Delegated ccTLD encourage or promote registrations from entities or individuals resident outside the territory of the Governmental Authority, to the extent those policies are applicable to the Delegated ccTLD, except where (a) the Sponsoring Organization is prohibited by law from implementing such an other ICANN policy... (http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/model-tscsa-31jan02.htm http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/model-tscsa-31jan02.htm) Translations: Local laws override ICANN policies. And more damning, it looks like CNNIC has no agreement with ICANN relating to .cn at all: http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/agreements.html http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/agreements.html
scotty79 17y ago
What could stop China from setting up their own root dns servers and issuing only the domains they want and rerouting queries to IANA and ICANN root dns server to their own?
aaronbrethorst 17y ago
From the article: "[GoDaddy] also believes the rules will have a 'chilling effect' on new domain name registrations." In other words, 'Chinese citizens in China won't be registering domains nearly as often as they used to, which means we can't make money offering services in China.' GoDaddy is pulling out because it won't be profitable to run their business in China anymore. The fact that they can make humanitarian claims for free press is just a bonus.

190 points by jeffmould 17y ago

My understanding is that China's upper leadership is largely intelligent and engineering-oriented. The fact that the Chinese government thinks this type of policy is a good idea makes me wonder if they know something I don't. Do they really expect to be able to keep a lid on political speech within their country long-term? (From a practical perspective, won't this just drive .cn domainholders to switch to .com?)

jeffmould 17y ago
While it may help with squatting and spam domains, I don't think it is anything more than a way for the government to censor content by attempting to identify exactly who is behind each domain in country. What I don't understand is this retroactive, meaning domains previously registered will be required to provide such information. In some ways though I do think it is a well intentioned idea with requiring some higher level of verification to register a domain name. Assuming that is all it is...
- bad_user 17y ago
  > In some ways though I do think it is a well intentioned idea Yeah, well ... the road to hell is paved with good intentions. They already have enough to identify you, unless you've given a false name / address. In which case they would only have to track the financial transaction ... and impose a rule that domains with untraceable owners should instantly be terminated (and I think this already applies to all tlds). What in the world do they need a picture for? I guess it's for fast reaction times, to identify more efficiently when they send the police at your door. Or for increased levels of paranoia amongst the population, keeping you honest and all that.
  - jeffmould 17y ago
    Oh I agree the photo is excessive. Never said the whole idea was great, just that the theory of requiring business registration verification or name verification is most likely well intentioned. What makes the whole thing skeptical and scary is that it is the government asking for this and not a specific registrar's policy.
    - bad_user 17y ago
      > the theory of requiring business registration verification or name verification is most likely well intentioned. But what good will that do? Surely having a verifiable online ID might be useful in collaborating with other people that might need some assurance you're a real person that's accountable for his behavior. But for domains, the only requirement should be as it is now ... that you must give accurate contact information. And asking for an address is too much for me anyway ... since if you're not careful about protecting it, you can become a target for maniacs (I'm still pretty pissed off about what happened to Kathy Sierra, which had the best blog I've ever read). Either way, you won't get rid of spammers, fraudsters or jerkiness.
rick888 17y ago
"The fact that the Chinese government thinks this type of policy is a good idea makes me wonder if they know something I don't." There were lots of very intelligent serial killers. I also seem to remember a smart woman that worked for NASA that drove many miles to get back at an old boyfriend. She wore a diaper so she wouldn't have to make a bathroom stop. The point I'm trying to make is that intelligent people many times make terrible decisions.
- lhuang 17y ago
  Why is it that you believe the CCP's decisions are terrible? At the meta level, China has outpaced everyone in the past twenty years in regards to growth and development. Among the senior CCP leaders, I imagine most if not all, acknowledge that an open, capitalistic democracy is inevitable. Their job is to grow the country to the point where the transition to said democracy is peaceful and smooth. No China analyst worth his salt will argue that China is ready for this transition today....
  - rms 17y ago
    I'm not convinced that the Chinese economic growth is sustainable. For the sake of all those Chinese without Urban Residency Permits I hope the growth continues, but I am not optimistic. And yes, a sudden transition to democracy would be disastrous for China. However, a safe and slow transition could begin today. Btw this is mostly a disagreement of relative morals, where we in the West have this concept that a government should be "good" where that word doesn't have the same meaning in China.
    - lhuang 17y ago
      But how should the transition even begin? By repealing all internet censorship laws? Most people don't realize that every day the situation in China improves for the better. Even the stiffling hukou system that you allude to has been slowly weakened over the years. In regards to your last sentence I'm not quite sure what you mean. I took it to mean that the social ideas of justice and law are different in China, of which I would tend to agree. West = rule of law. China = rule by law. Frankly I think Chinese society is just not ready for democracy. There is simply no civic society.
rms 17y ago
>Do they really expect to be able to keep a lid on political speech within their country long-term? No, but they expect to be able to do it in the short term. I think at this point they are just hoping to delay a more open internet for five or seven years -- much beyond that begins to seem laughable. I suspect the leaders of China understand better than we do just how tenuous their control is, and I think their fear of free political speech is legitimate. A protest in Tiananmen Square once almost brought down the government, and I don't think the CCP could withstand another protest of that magnitude, though of course less-lethal crowd dispersal technology has come a long way.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  This is going to sound tin-foil-hattish of me, but... Maybe they think they don't need a long-term strategy. They only need to hold out short-term, until western governments take care of the problem for them. With all the nonsense going on over kiddie pr0n, copyright infringement, etc., we are hearing a lot of scare stuff that would require even the "free world" to implement the kind of controlled infrastructure that China would love.
  - lhuang 17y ago
    I think the CCP is very long-term oriented. The majority of their policies I think would support this. If anything, the CCP is willing to give short-term concessions if it will guarantee long-term success. This is not so-much the case now as China has more to bring to the bargaining table. But if you look at China's trade policies in the 80s and 90s they were very accommodating to western demands, even if it put China in a weaker position.
- netcan 17y ago
  I think that they are even more subtle in their ideas. They know they can't control 100% over speech, nevermind information. They can have some control, say 60%. They are concerned with yielding that 60% effectively enough that the 40% doesn't matter. Maybe in the future they'll have 40%, they'll deal with that too. The Google thing was very instructive. Control was far from 100% but newspapers and Chinese sites were highly controlled. Many foreign sources, for the more skeptically inclined, were blocked, but many weren't. They selectively let in more misquotes of Google employees making absurd sounding claims. As always, the truly motivated could get to whatever news sources they wanted. The upshot is that they can control the story and public perception without preventing facts from penetrating.
gojomo 17y ago
What they know is their own history. Within the memory of China's current leadership, they've had a personality-cult-dictatorship and famines and purges-of-intellectuals (the 60s and 70s). Going back to the early-to-mid-20th century, China faced invading armies, a bitter civil war, and a communist revolution -- together killing tens of millions. In the 19th century, China was dominated by western foreign powers, and had another civil war -- the Taiping rebellion -- that featured a self-proclaimed "brother of Jesus" leading a "heavenly army" in a conflict that killed 25 million -- proportionately more than the US lost in its civil war of the same period (which had fewer cult/messianical undertones). US domestic policy is still informed (and twisted) by our far-more-mild experiences over the same periods. So it's understandable that the technocratic Chinese leadership thinks that their own population, without strong central control, is prone to be caught up in giant ideological swings and civil wars. While not excusing human rights violations, this insight should at least make their mindset a little less mysterious. America has had the luxury of seeing openness work for two centuries at the same time China was suffering religious, imperialist, and ideological misery.
- cglee 17y ago
  Very good point. Another perspective that shapes China is its long term view of things. If you take a hard, LONG look at China's history, it's shaped by the peasant class. The dynastic cycles have been the result of peasant uprisings, so while everyone in the West likes to focus on the developing cities, hot technologies, etc, it's really how well the peasant class does that will shape China.
- est 17y ago
  > So it's understandable that the technocratic Chinese leadership thinks that their own population, without strong central control, is prone to be caught up in giant ideological swings and civil wars. This is very debatable. In history, China's top two dynasties. Han and Tang, both emphasis a Taoism Wu wei rule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei Yet both empires are the most powerful, liberate and culture rich dynasties of China. Han and Tang are technically every Chinese's dream country.
liuliu 17y ago
> My understanding is that China's upper leadership is largely intelligent and engineering-oriented. This kind of thought scared me. It is a shame to admit that about 3 years ago, I held the same belief. But through my experience in doing startup and get in touch with several high level official's children in China, I think that it is totally wrong. Maybe they are intelligent but their intelligence are definitely not used in the right way. How can you expect one who spent the whole life on plotting how to kill politic opponents to be a visionary? From my experience, the high level officials in China are corrupted. They buy luxury goods, pay for the most luxury sex service all that stuff. There is an old Chinese saying which describes the current regime in China perfectly: 肉食者鄙，未能远谋。 It says, the one who eat meat everyday (the one in power) lost the ability to envision the future.
drawkbox 17y ago
Groupthink, power and committees, even intelligent and engineering-oriented, can go awry. Look at SOAP and WS standards for a sample of how bad things can go. Engineers aren't always the best managers/authority and there is lots of ego in intelligence.
papersmith 17y ago
"My understanding is that China's upper leadership is largely intelligent and engineering-oriented." It's a bit complicated. Over the recent years, there is an increasing divide between two rival factions. One consists of the populists who rose through meritocracy, the others being the princelings, the unofficial aristocratic lineage of the communist upper-management. The populists are the ones with engineering degrees. The princelings mostly have degrees in law, business, and the humanities. http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0816_china_li.aspx http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0816_china_li.aspx
fauigerzigerk 17y ago
Engineering approaches to politics and social issues are notoriously brittle. The more the Chinese leadership tries to control what can and cannot happen the more unpredictable any breakdown of control will be.

mbreese 17y ago

Since this is GoDaddy, why do I just see this as publicity? If it were most other companies, I'd be impressed, but given that it's GoDaddy, I just can't take it seriously. Even though they are talking about Congressional testimony from their general counsel regarding a very strict set of requirements (and personal information) for .cn registration, I just can't take it seriously.

siculars 17y ago
Bob Parsons was a USM. I'm sure he is enjoying this opportunity to do what he can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Parsons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Parsons
- Nwallins 17y ago
  N.B. USM, as in USMC, as in United States Marine Corps.
alanthonyc 17y ago
Whatever you think of their commercials, you can take the facts at face value. In December, China began to enforce a new policy that required any registrant of a new .cn domain name to provide a color head shot and other business identification, including a Chinese business registration number and physical signed registration forms. ... "We were immediately concerned about the motives behind the increased level of registrant verification being required," Christine N. Jones, general counsel of the Go Daddy Group Inc., plans to tell lawmakers Wednesday afternoon, according to a copy of her written testimony to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. "The intent of the procedures appeared, to us, to be based on a desire by the Chinese authorities to exercise increased control over the subject matter of domain name registrations by Chinese nationals."
dasboot 17y ago
It's probably mainly a business decision (admin hassle) milked for PR. Let's not politicize things too much, and let's not forget that GoDaddy doesn't exactly have a stellar ethical record as well. They are quick to censor speech [1], delisting whole sites from DNS. They also have advertising policies that are questionable, etc. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/03/godaddy-silence/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/03/godaddy-silence/

darien 17y ago

Months back I registered a .cn domain using godaddy. 2 days later Godaddy sent me an email with a refund apologizing that they were unable to register. I imagine that they were growing weary of that.

liuliu 17y ago

It is unclear how they plan to do with the .cn domains that were registered on the godaddy.com.

wmf 17y ago
AFAIK GoDaddy is just a reseller for CNNIC for .cn domains; that contract can be renegotiated.

siculars 17y ago

The key takeaway from the article for me was not only that China is requiring enhanced registrant tracking for new domains going forward but also for previously registered domains. Not only is this a privacy issue but it is also an administrative nightmare for GoDaddy. So how will China manage this? Match a list of .cn domains registered via GoDaddy? I can only imagine the rats nest of DENY statements all over their infrastructure. The next step is for China to impose these rules as a prerequisite for registries when they renew their contracts to dole out .cn domains. Question on a tangential thread, would anybody here even use a DNS server based in China? Hardcode opendns.com DNS addresses (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220) ftw. Can you even get port 53 outbound to a non China controlled DNS server from within China? I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm very happy to see companies take a stand against China and their policies.

rmorrison 17y ago
China doesn't shy away from these types of administrative nightmares, here is one from a few years ago that I stumbled on the other day, which must be an mess for them to enforce: In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." (http://boingboing.net/2007/08/22/china-to-tibetan-bud.html http://boingboing.net/2007/08/22/china-to-tibetan-bud.html)
- anamax 17y ago
  It's not completely absurd. Reincarnation is how some Buddhist traditions are passed down from generation to generation. China now has official control over such transfers. Whether that works out as de facto control is another issue, but they're trying.

grandalf 17y ago

Now Chinese entrepreneurs will have a harder time launching websites. Success!

jhancock 17y ago
It is an impediment to running some new site you just want to throw at the wall and see what happens. This is truly a loss. But for the most part these rules have always been challenging. I've had to run down to a Shanghai IDC in years past to show proper company backing for my server. The gov calls the IDC and says we're going to do an audit next week. The IDC looks through it books to see who doesn't have their records up to date and calls to try to mitigate any interruption in service. For a local Chinese with a plan to launch a startup, you need to get your corporate paperwork in order anyway just as you would in the U.S. In that regard, this is just one more set of forms to fill out. This change is a larger barrier for foreigners that can't read mandarin and understand current Chinese regulation. For them, they're used to being able to go to any number of web sites, typing in their credit card and owning a domain.

dogas 17y ago

Godaddy should just go ahead and pull out of america too.

sharan 17y ago

"...any registrant of a new .cn domain name to provide a color head shot and other business identification, including a Chinese business registration number and physical signed registration forms." Question: Can't ICANN postulate what can and cannot be relevant information that is gathered?

dfranke 17y ago
China has guns. ICANN doesn't.
wmf 17y ago
Can't ICANN postulate what can and cannot be relevant information that is gathered? Maybe, maybe not. The designated [ccTLD] manager must be equitable and fair to all groups in the domain that request domain names. Specifically, the same rules must be applied to all requests and they must be processed in a non-discriminatory fashion. The policies and procedures for the use of each TLD must be available for public inspection. Generally these are posted on web pages or made available for file transfer. While variations in policies and procedures from country to country are expected due to local customs and cultural values, they must be documented and available to interested parties. Requests from for-profit and non-profit companies and organizations are to be treated on an equal basis. No bias shall be shown regarding requests that may come from customers of some other business related to the TLD manager. For example, no preferential service for customers of a particular data network provider. There can be no stipulation that a particular application, protocol, or product be used. (http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-1.htm http://www.icann.org/en/icp/icp-1.htm) Translation: ICANN won't attempt to contradict local customs. The Sponsoring Organization shall abide by ICANN policies ... that concern ... other topics, in the circumstance that the registration policies for the Delegated ccTLD encourage or promote registrations from entities or individuals resident outside the territory of the Governmental Authority, to the extent those policies are applicable to the Delegated ccTLD, except where (a) the Sponsoring Organization is prohibited by law from implementing such an other ICANN policy... (http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/model-tscsa-31jan02.htm http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/model-tscsa-31jan02.htm) Translations: Local laws override ICANN policies. And more damning, it looks like CNNIC has no agreement with ICANN relating to .cn at all: http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/agreements.html http://www.icann.org/en/cctlds/agreements.html

scotty79 17y ago

What could stop China from setting up their own root dns servers and issuing only the domains they want and rerouting queries to IANA and ICANN root dns server to their own?

aaronbrethorst 17y ago

From the article: "[GoDaddy] also believes the rules will have a 'chilling effect' on new domain name registrations." In other words, 'Chinese citizens in China won't be registering domains nearly as often as they used to, which means we can't make money offering services in China.' GoDaddy is pulling out because it won't be profitable to run their business in China anymore. The fact that they can make humanitarian claims for free press is just a bonus.