Godaddy will discontinue registerring domain names in China
At least one establishment is prompt to pursue Google’s attitude on doing affair in China: GoDaddy.
During a congressional hearing later today to debate Internet freedom and China, GoDaddy administrators plan to proclaim that they will discontinue registering domain names in China in reaction to a new government policy that demands extensive information about registrants, according to The Washington Post. Starting last December, personals and businesses that wished to enroll a .cn domain name were being asked to submit a photograph of themselves as well as a serial number identifying their business license in China.
“This is the first time a registry has asked us to retroactively acquire additional verification and documentation of particulars who have registered a domain name through our firm,” Christine Jones, general counsel at GoDaddy, said in a copy of her prepared remarks provided by GoDaddy. The company will carry on handle existing registrations but will no longer offer new .cn domain names, she said.
Jones also told the board that GoDaddy has faced increased quantities of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks since the beginning of the year. “In the first three months of this year, we have repulsed dozens of extremely severe DDoS attacks that seem to have originated in China, based on the IP addresses from which the abuses derived. Had our protection systems not countered these attacks, the outcome would have been a extensive take-down of our customers’ hosted Web sites,” Jones said in her prepared attestation.
Google’s Alan Davidson, manager of public policy, also plans to speak before the hearing, coming two days after Google declared its determination to shift its Chinese-language search engine from mainland China to Hong Kong in order to bypass government laws on Internet censorship.
“Internet censorship is a provocation that no particular industry–much less any single company–can tackle on its own,” Davidson arranges to say during his testimony, according to a copy of his prepared comments posted on Google’s public policy blog. “However, we believe concerted, collective action by governments, companies and individuals can help promote online free expression and reduce the impact of censorship.”
For the most part, U.S. firms have reiterated plans to stay in China and adhere to their laws following Google’s primary announcement in January and following moves this week. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged companies to do their part in pressuring governments to open up the Internet to their residents, but many companies feel the issue is much more appropriately dealt with at the national level, according to trade group representatives.
