Internet analysts are watching very carefully as China's newly-opened .cn domain opens an even wider spread for Web addresses and Web reach. Mainland China is looking to bring even more than its already 50 million online users into cyberspace. The new top-level domain opens up a new prospect for cybersquating wars not unlike those that raged around .com and other earlier domains.
Domain name registrar EnCirca says there's more global interest now in getting a presence in China to serve its surging e-commerce market. China isn't yet in the top 10 among countries represented by Internet pre-registrants - the United States (46 percent) is number one, and the Czech Republic (2 percent) is number ten, with Germany (10 percent), Switzerland (9), Canada (6), the U.K. (5), Austria (5), Australia (4), Hong Kong (3), and Belgium (2) separating them - but the Chinese government is bent on getting all its 1.2 billion citizens to register domains, EnCirca says.
"Speculators are rushing to snap up the most desirable addresses for destination sites," the registrar said in a formal statement. "Professional investors in the domain name industry are the first to recognize an opportunity in new Internet domains. The interest is higher than [we have] seen for other new Internet domain introductions."
EnCirca says numerous famous trademarks are being reserved by Net speculators, with cybersquatters ignoring the skirmishes that happened in the .com realm. That could be a problem since China's .cn dispute policies aren't as trademark-friendly as the .com policies are, EnCirca continued. "This means that trademark owners will need to repeat the battle waged in the .com namespace," according to EnCirca.
The Chinese government is making it easy for international business to do cyberbusiness on .cn, said another registrar, NeuLevel, a Virginia-based firm selected as the exclusive .cn registry gateway outside China by the country's Internet Network Information Center.
".cn domain name registrations occur in real time and are open to any organization," said NeuLevel registry vice president Richard Tindal in a statement. "There are no requirements for a presence in China, contacts in China, association with China, or Chinese name servers. .cn is a completely new and open space, and one of the least restrictive registration processes in the world."
NeuLevel said various e-commerce forecasts say the current market could jump from its current $479 million value estimate to about $20 billion by 2005 - and the new Chinese domain and reach expansion could provide a major portion of that boost. "With .cn already established in China as a household name," Tindal continued, "U.S. businesses are being offered an unprecedented opportunity to experience an immediate impact in the China market."
