Selling .CN Domains?

You may have noticed articles recently about several of our competitors choosing to stop selling .CN domain names. The analysis about why this is the case has been varied, ranging from “they’re doing it for the publicity to ride the media wave surrounding Google’s decision to stop censoring search results in China” to “it was purely a business decision”. The likely reality is that it’s both.

At Dotster, we haven’t sold .CN domain names for a while now as well. However, we continue to offer all of our other domain extensions to Chinese customers. Here’s why:

Recently, China changed the requirements for .CN domains and now requires that registrars provide more information and additional paperwork to the Chinese government for each domain registration. Regardless of how we feel about providing sensitive information to the Chinese government on customers who register .CN domains, we don’t make enough money on a .CN per-domain basis to cover the additional time and expenses required to meet China’s new registration requirements. As such, we have discontinued selling .CN domains in recent months and have no plans to resume selling them with the current registration process as it is.

This is the situation that most registrars are in, and most will likely stop selling .CN domains if they have not already. Chinese citizens can still register any other TLD without the restrictions or extra requirements for .CN, so we’re happy to continue providing domain registration services to China outside of selling .CN domains. How about a .ASIA instead?