Chinese domain change in 2009: ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization that manages the world's most important web address extensions- in other words, what goes after the dot in a URL, has decided that the internationalised domain names those that do not use Latin characters including Chinese will be put into use next year. The decision will turn the current .cn into .China in Chinese.

ICANN says the limit to registration of the internet domain names will be lifted from the first quarter of next year, and then 1.3 billion internet users will be able to set up their own personalised domain names. The 25-year monopoly of .com will be broken by thousands of new names.

Liu Zhijiang, Deputy Director China Internet Network Information Center, said, "ICANN will put .China in Chinese into its root servers in the first half of next year."

Often a rush to register happens when new domain names appear due to their exclusiveness.

Liu Zhijiang said, "Investment on domain names is a market activity, so there are risks. And vicious pre-registration of the words with civil rights is not allowed."

Liu says China has carried out the Measures on the Administration of China Internet Domain Names, and the code protects the registration rights of the names of the government organizations and geography.

Meanwhile, to the other group of the general civil-right words, the registration adopts the first-come-first-get rule.

If the registration is suspect of infringment of business interests, the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Committee is responsible for the arbitration.