China may reverse citizen ban on domain registration

Chinese web regulators banned individual domain registration without a business license in early December, purportedly as part of a crackdown on internet smut and malware. But an official from China's Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) told the English-language newspaper ChinaDaily that the decision may be reversed — so …

[John Tserkezis]

Same here in Australia.

All jokes about the Great Australian Firewall aside, domain registration is the same here.

Effectively, if you don't register the name as a business, it ain't gonna happen.

What's worse, you need to submit three names, of which *they* pick the "best".

Worse still, this entire process takes some time. Forget about getting it right now.

Or, you can submit a US entry, if it isn't already taken, you pay for it via Credit Card, and it's valid within 24 hours. Wham bam thank you ma'am, that's how it's done.

Say what you want about the yanks, they know how to run a business.

[Anonymous Coward]

Down with Oz

Cor! That's bad - what if you have a specific business name, and "they" choose a different one to what you'd like your business to be known as?

Glad it's nice and open-ish here in Blighty - my personal domain is registered as a .co.uk, even though that's technically for companies.....

[SirTainleyBarking]

So lets see

Totalitarian government in China makes it easier to register a domain whilst the Australian Government...........

Sums up the current bunch in power over there. And I thought the British were a bit *Ahem* anal

[Jon 85]

That's simply not true

All you need to register a domain name in .com.au or .net.au is an ABN - a business tax registration number. You are able to do so as a sole trader, trading under your own name. The actual policy doesn't even require an ABN but the practice among registrars is to require one as it allows them to automate their systems.

The normal turnaround time for registering one of these names is a matter of seconds.

I don't know where you get the idea that *they* pick one of three submitted for you. That's just nonsense.

By 'US entry', I presume you mean like a .com? Well they take seconds to register as well. You can even register one through an Australian registrar.

If you actually mean a .us name, which is the actual US country code, then you need to be able to demonstrate a 'nexus' (such as a trading relationship) with the United States. And there have been recent examples of .us names being deleted where this nexus information was shown to be false.