Chinese TLDs get Chinese approval

Finally! Two Chinese IDNs get welcome news from China’s regulators.

After a long wait, two Chinese internationalized domain names have been accredited by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

TLD Registry’s .在线 (Dot Chinese Online) and .中文网 (Dot Chinese Website) received the accreditation on February 10.

The accreditation means that Chinese residents can register the domain names and host them in mainland China. Previously, the domains could not be hosted in China. Chinese citizens must obtain an Internet Content Provider (ICP) license from MIIT in order to host the domains in China.

These two domain names jumped out to a quick start with the announcement in 2014 that the Chinese government purchased 20,000 of the domain names. Yet the domains have been somewhat idle for the past couple of years as TLD Registry waited for MIIT approval. This must have been particularly frustrating given the Chinese government’s initial registrations and the fact that the domain names are Chinese IDNs.

.在线 (Dot Chinese Online) is priced at about $15 retail and .中文网 (Dot Chinese Website) is about $40.

It appears that Top Level Design’s .Ink domain name has also received MIIT approval.