Two US companies that sell Internet addresses to Web sites said on Wednesday they had stopped registering new domain names in China because the Chinese government has begun demanding pictures and other identification documents from their customers.
One of the domain name companies, Go Daddy Inc, announced its change in policy at a congressional hearing that was largely devoted to Google Inc’s announcement on Monday that it will no longer censor Internet search results in China.
Go Daddy executive vice president and general counsel Christine Jones said the company’s decision was not a reaction to Google but instead reflects its concern about the security of its customers and “the chilling effect” of the new Chinese government requirements.
“We just made a decision that we didn’t want to act as an agent of the Chinese government,” Jones told lawmakers.
Separately, a company that offers similar services, Network Solutions LLC, also said on Wednesday it had stopped handling China Web registrations in December, for the same reason.
Zhong Shan (鍾山), China’s vice commerce secretary in charge of foreign trade, said he hadn’t been briefed on the Go Daddy decision.
Speaking to reporters at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, however, Zhong called Google’s decision an “exceptional case” that wouldn’t undermine the confidence of foreign investors in China. He said China’s economy wasn’t perfect, but that the government was working to create a more attractive investment environment.
Go Daddy has been registering domain names in China since 2005 under authorization from the China Internet Network Information Center, a quasi-government agency. The company currently manages about 27,000 “.cn” domain names.
Go Daddy said the agency has always made the company, known as a registrar, collect customer names, addresses and other contact information since it began registering “.cn” Internet domain names. But late last year, Go Daddy said, the Chinese agency changed its policy to require “.cn” domain name registrars to also collect head shots, business identifications and signed registration forms from new customers and then forward that information to the agency.
Then, Jones said, the agency instructed domain name registrars to obtain this same information from existing customers and forward it too — warning that Web sites of customers who refuse to register would be disabled.
Go Daddy said it has contacted 1,200 of its customers with “.cn” Web sites, asking for the additional documentation and informing them that it would be handed over to the China Internet Network Information Center.
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS