China halts overseas registrars from registering .cn domains

CNNIC, the official registry for .CN, announced that all overseas registrars will no longer be allowed to register .CN domains from 6 January 2010.

This measure may be temporary as the reason given for this drastic action is that the Chinese registry is experiencing difficulties in handling the new paper-based domain name application verification process introduced during December 2009.

In our experience the majority of domain name disputes or phishing scams involving .cn domain names originate from within China. The main reason for this is that the squatters and scammers know it is difficult and expensive to litigate in China and are therefore relatively unrestricted in what they can do online.

The issue is not to implement a manual verification process or restricting foreign registrars from registering domain names but rather coordinating a simple, cost effective method of recovering domain names that breach Intellectual Property Laws or the CNNIC registration agreement.