MAYBE CHINA SHOULD FILE A UDRP

Earlier this month, Verisign Inc. of the U.S. said it would start accepting registration in Chinese, Korean and Japanese characters for domain names. A body under the Chinese government immediately struck back by announcing a rival, and incompatible, system to register Chinese-language names.

Will China's desire to control Internet use splinter the Web?

"In protecting Chinese domain names, most important is protecting the country's interests and defending the national culture," Chen Yin, an official at the Ministry of Information Industries, said recently in explaining the move.

Until now, only English has been used for domain names. That has meant a seamless global Internet in which all names ending in ".com," ".org," and ".net," for example, are registered with Verisign. But the company's new effort to move into foreign languages, which it initially trumpeted as a bid to make the Internet more multicultural, has morphed into a trade war with a techno-twist that could splinter the Internet into competing universes.

If the rival systems get under way, slated for the next several months, they could cause major headaches for Chinese-speaking Internet surfers around the globe. Users in different places could be routed to different Web sites and have no way to reach others. Companies would have to register with both systems, paying fees to both Verisign and the China Internet Network Information Center, the government-affiliated body that administers Chinese domain names.

"The risk is balkanization of the Internet, dividing the Internet up into islands of connectivity," says Pindar Wong, until recently the vice chairman of ICANN, the global body that governs the Internet. "Global connectivity is the most precious aspect of the Internet. Anything that might potentially jeopardize that needs to be considered very carefully."

For many Chinese, the Verisign system represents an ill-cloaked effort to "recolonize" China, this time in cyberspace. State-run newspapers have run headlines like "Protecting Chinese domain names is protecting the national interest." Many Chinese believe that the Chinese language "belongs" to them and shouldn't be in the hands of a foreign company. Not least, the two sides are also battling over the millions of dollars in revenue that can be earned from allocating domain names, which for Verisign has proved a $120 million-a-year business.

The battle also represents Beijing's continuing effort to embrace the Internet's development potential while still retaining control over it. Under the Chinese system, users would have to download special free software that would rout all their requests to a central "dictionary" residing on computer servers in Beijing, says Gary Lai, chief operating officer of Chinese Domain Name Corp., a Hong Kong firm that helped in its development. With complete control over this "dictionary," administrators of the system in Beijing could reserve names or ban others they deemed inappropriate.

As such, China's system is a home-grown method of handling Chinese-language domain names completely separate from what is currently in use -- a change as fundamental as if China decided it would use its own system of telephone numbers. However, with the backing of the Chinese government, few doubt that if it works it would soon be the dominant system in that country, one of the Internet's global hotspots.

'Cybersquatter' Dilemma

"It's a classic case of China trying to develop the Internet the way it suits them rather than what suits the rest of the world," says Matthew McGarvey, senior Internet analyst in Beijing for research firm IDC.

But the U.S. system has its critics, too: When Verisign opened registration of Chinese-language domain names on Nov. 10, hordes of "cybersquatters" grabbed names of Chinese government departments, political leaders and major companies with an eye to selling them later to their rightful owners at inflated prices.

"There was a tremendous amount of interest and a high volume of registrations," says Bruce Chovnick, general manager for Verisign Registry Services. He says that under the company's contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce, names must be sold at the standard rate to whomever requests them first.

Other players are adding to the confusion. A Singapore-based company, i-DNS Ltd., offers its own Chinese-language Net naming system, and already boasts a registry of 120,000 names. Many users in Hong Kong and Taiwan can type in all-Chinese Web addresses using this system. Company executive Michael Ng says it intentionally reserved thousands of Chinese names to get around the problems of squatting and political sensitivities.

Efforts at reconciliation have so far come to naught. In talks earlier this year with Chinese officials, Verisign executives were shocked when officials said they regarded Verisign's new business as an infringement on Chinese sovereignty. "They said, 'We control the Chinese language'," says Verisign's Mr. Chovnick. "How do we deal with that? There's no legal precedent."

Copyright © 1995 - 2007 ICB. Inc. All rights reserved. "ICB Toll Free News" is a trademark of ICB Inc. ICB Inc. assumes no responsibility for use or misuse of information contained herein and / or accessible via this site. ICB Inc. cannot and does not vouch for the accuracy and / or usability of any of the contained or linked-to information, and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions.