{"id":192705,"date":"2016-03-29T17:49:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T00:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=192705"},"modified":"2016-03-29T18:43:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T01:43:45","slug":"china-considers-tightening-control-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2016\/03\/china-considers-tightening-control-websites\/","title":{"rendered":"China Previews Murky Web Domain Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology this week posted a draft revision to the 2004 “Chinese Internet Domain Name Management Rules”<\/a> which will be online for public comment until April 25<\/a>. If passed, the new regulations would require all websites to register their domain names with local ISPs and authorities.\u00a0(See a full English translation<\/a> at Rogier Creemers’ China Copyright and Media blog.) At The New York Times, Paul Mozur reports on the draft, highlighting its\u00a0lack of clarity and outlining possible implications<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

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It was not clear whether the rule would apply to all websites or only to those hosted on servers in China. Chinese laws can be haphazardly enforced and are usually vague, and because the new rule is only a draft, analysts said they expected the regulator, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, to specify later to whom the law would apply.<\/p>\n

If the rule applies to all websites, it will have major implications and will effectively cut China out of the global Internet. By creating a domestic registry for websites, the rule would create a system of censorship in which only websites that have specifically registered with the Chinese government would be reachable from within the country.<\/p>\n

[…]\u00a0Other experts, however, said the law would probably apply only to websites hosted in China.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think these regulations are about content hosted in China,\u201d said Rogier Creemers, a lecturer on Chinese politics at Oxford University. \u201cIt can be that they expand in the future.\u201d He pointed out that if the rules applied to all websites, they would eliminate access overnight to a huge chunk of the Internet.<\/p>\n

If the law applies only to sites hosted in China, it would still represent a consolidation of power by Beijing. Forcing registration with Chinese entities is likely to create a new boom in domain-name service registrars. At the moment, Alibaba operates China\u2019s primary domain-name service provider, called\u00a0Wan Wang<\/a>. [Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The joy of covering China. This law either cuts China from the global Internet w\/ huge repercussions or does nothing https:\/\/t.co\/TRQAmYPjNg<\/a><\/p>\n

— Paul Mozur (@paulmozur) March 29, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n